IB 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

Gift  of 

E.    SLOTTEN 


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WHAT   NOW? 


FOR   YOUNG   LADIES. 


BY  CHARLES  F.  DEEMS,  D.  D .. 

PAHDit  of  THE  ' '  CHUBCH  OF  THE  8TEANGEB8,"  NEW  TOItK. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE 
AMERICAN  TRACT   SOCIETY, 

150  NASSAU-STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  18G9,  by  the 
American  Tract  Society,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court 
ot  the  United  States  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


What  Now? 


T  is  a  remark  of  that  keen 
analyser  of  human  charac- 
ter and  shrewd  observer  of 
human  manners,  John  Foster. 

[  have  observed  that  most  la- 
dies who  have  had  what  is  con- 
sidered bs  an  education  have  no  idea  of 
an  education  progressive  through # life. 
Saving  attained  a  certain  measure  of 
accomplishment,  knowledge,  manner-. 
etc.,  they  consider  themselves  as  made 
up,  and  so  take  their  station.     They  are 


4  WHAT  NOW  ? 

pictures  which  being  quite  finished  are 
now  put  in  a  frame,  a  gilded  one  if  pos- 
sible, and  hung  up  in  permanence  of 
beauty !  in  permanence,  that  is  to  say, 
till  old  Time  with  his  rude  and  dirty 
fingers,  soil  the  charming  colors.77 

It  is  to  the  young  ladies  who  have 
had  "what  is  considered  as  an  educa- 
tion,77 that  the  counsels  of  this  little  book 
are  addressed,  whether  their  training 
has  heretofore  been  conducted  in  schools, 
or  under  the  guidance  of  skilful  hands 
at  home.  In  this  generation  and  in  this 
country,  very  many  young  ladies  have 
had  the  advantage  of  a  regular  course  in 
academies  and  seminaries,  some  of  which 
are  so  wide  in  their  aims  as  to  take  the 
name  of  colleges.  There  are  very  many 
young  ladies  who  have  had  careful  in- 
struction in  the  domestic  circle,  and  have 
such  good  minds  that  some  of  them  sur- 


1  HE  woKiv  NOT  DONE  5 

pass  many  who  iv  graduate, "  as  it  is 
called,  from  the  higher  schools  in  the 
country. 

It  is  hoped  that  both  classes  will  be 
interested  in  the  sentiments  here  pre- 
sented to  their  consideration.  It  is  quite 
natural,  however,  thai  in  addressing  edu- 
cated young  ladies,  about  to  enter  upon 
the  active  duties  of  life,  taking  a  posi- 
tion which  causes  them  to  cease  to  be 
considered  as  girls,  and  ranking  them 
With  women,  the  niind  of  the  writer 
should  turn  to  those  who  have  passed 
through  school-life;  but  there  is  no  sug- 
gestion or  advice  addressed  to  them 
which  is  not  believed  to  be  equally  prof- 
itable to  the  other  class  of  intelligent 
young  ladies. 

You  have  gone  through  the  pas 
girlhood.    You  stand  before  a  great  door 
which, not  many  years  ago.  seemed  to  you 


6  WHAT  NOW? 

to  be  a  long  way  in  the  distance.  Look 
at  it  now.  It  bears  an  inscription.  That 
inscription  is  the  question,  What  now? 
Yes,  what  now  ?  Something  now,  sure- 
ly. You  are  not  of  that  class  of  young 
ladies  described  by  John  Foster  as  hav- 
ing no  idea  that  education  is  progressive 
through  life.  If  so,  wdiat  a  grand  mis- 
take you  have  made  !  You  have  mere- 
ly begun.  The  most  that  any,  even  the 
best  schools  in  the  country,  can  do  for 
their  pupils,  is  merely  to  teach  them 
how  to  educate  themselves.  They  give 
them  the  point  of  departure,  the  charts, 
the  compass,  the  instruction  in  naviga- 
tion, and  launch  them  upon  the  sea  on 
which  they  are  to  make  the  voyage  of 
life  towards  the  port  of  heaven.  They 
must  ever  be  watching  the  winds,  guard- 
ing the  helm,  taking  their  bearings,  and 
making  their  soundings.    But  alas  !  how 


THE   WORK  NOT  DONE.  7 

many  young  ladies  are  launched  and 
go  a-drifting,  helmless  and  compassless, 
whithersoever  wind  and  wave  may  beart 
them  !  And  how  many  go  down  at  tea, 
or  wreck  on  reels  where  many  a  bark 
lies  shattered! 

To  take  up  Foster's  figure,  y0n  have 
simply  chalked  on  the  canvas  the  out- 
lines of  the  landscape.  The  Minting  ta 
to  be  a  lifelong  work.  You  are  care- 
folly  to  mix  your  colors,  study  the 
shades,  lay  on  the  pigment,  and  bring 
your  picture  to  such  perfection  that  it 
may  be  framed  in  immortality  and  hung 
in  the  grand  gallery  of  eternity.  When 
a  nobleman  had  engaged  an  artist  to 
execute  a  masterpiece  of  sculpture  Un- 
him,  he  visited  the  studio  after  several 
weeks'  absence,  and  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  artist  had  made  little  progress. 
"  What  have  you  been  doing?"  said  he. 


8  WHAT  NOW? 

44  Working  at  this  figure.?  "But  I  see 
nothing  done  beyond  what  was  accom- 
plished before  my  last  visit."  "Why," 
said  the  sculptor,  "I  have  developed 
this  muscle,  I  have  modified  this  portion 
of  the  drapery,  I  have  slightly  changed 
this  expression  of  the  lip."  "  But  these 
are  trifles."  "True,  my  lord,"  replied 
the  sculptor;  "but  perfection  is  made 
up  of  trifles." 

And  bo  in  the  development  of  charac- 
ter. No  one  can  appreciate  the  hidden 
labor,  the  fastidious  carefulness,  with 
which  you  will  toil  in  secret  to  strength- 
en some  weak  point  in  your  character, 
to  bring  out  some  faculty  and  to  educate 
some  power.  But  the  world  can  appre- 
ciate the  whole  of  a  nobly  developed 
character.  It  is  in  this  as  in  other 
things,  as  in  painting  for  instance.  The 
picture    charms   from   its   vraisemblance, 


THE  WORK  NOT  DONE.  9 

its  truth  to  nature,  its  soft  blending  of 
colors,  its  harmonious  adjustment  of  fea- 
tures. The  beholder  is  delighted.  The 
slightest  disproportion  in  a  figure,  the 
slighest  imbalance  of  tight  and  shade, 
would  break  the  charm.  The  beholder 
could  not  tell  why;  bat  there  would  be 
something  wrong.  How  little  can  he 
who  walks  a  gallery  of  paintings  tell  of 
the  toil,  the  study  of  nature  and  of  the 
masters,  the  close  devotion  to  details,  the 
whole  week  spent  on  a  twig,  on  a  leaf,  on 
a  square  inch  of  flame  or  smoke  or  foliage. 

And  BO  in  music.  The  harmony  and 
the  melody  arc  perfect.  rriie  orchestra  is 
perfectly  cast.  The  composer  and  man- 
ager have  neglected  no  detail.  The  in- 
struments are  brought  to  exactest  accord. 
The  voices  are  trained  to  their  besi 
capabilities.  The  effect  upon  the  audi- 
ence  is  prodigious.      A   wrong  note,  a 

9 


10  WHAT  NOW  ? 

weak  string,  a  single  harsh  voice  would 
destroy  the  effect.  But  who  can  esti- 
mate the  long  years  of  scientific  training 
upon  the  part  of  the  composer,  to  enable 
him  to  produce  a  work  which  accords  at 
once  with  science  and  the  beatings  of 
ten  thousand  human  hearts  ?  Who  can 
appreciate  the  care  with  which  each 
member  of  the  orchestra  has  brought  his 
voice  to  a  perfect  consonance  with  a 
hundred  other  voices  of  different  powers? 
And  so  with  oratory.  The  chains  of 
logic  are  flung  round  an  audience,  and 
the  lever  of  the  heart  is  put  into  the 
windlass  of  the  intellect,  and  the  whole 
mass  of  human  spirits  is  drawn  by  the 
power  of  a  single  hand.  But  who  can 
tell  what  fields  of  science  and  history 
have  been  explored,  and  what  hours  of 
careful  weighing  of  arguments,  what 
years  of  the  study  of  language -and  voice, 


THE  WORK  NOT  DONE.  11 

and  of  the  balance  of  human  passions, 
what  efforts  of  self-control  have  marked 
the  history  of  the  orator,  before  he  found 
the  capability  of  seizing,  and  lifting,  and 
swaying  thousands  of  human  souls  ! 

These  results  occupy  small  space.  The 
painting  is  hung,  and  in  one  minute  its 
entire  effect  has  entered  the  mind  and 
enchained  it.  The  key-note  is  struck, 
and  in  ten  minutes  the  crowded  concert  - 
room  heaves  with  emotion.  The  oration 
begins,  and  in  one  hour  thousands  of 
hearts  have  been  elevated  to  the  highest 
region  of  sentiment.  or  hurried  to  the 
verge  of  the  greatesl  moral  or  physical 
daring.  But  the  preparation  has  bfcen 
long  and  laborious — so  long  and  labori- 
ous that  the  producers  of  effects  in  these 
several  cases  are  not  aware  how  much 
they  did  before  they  could  do  any  thing 
very  great.     Every  object  upon  which 


12  WHAT  NOW  ? 

the  painter  had  gazed,  every  sound  of 
man  or  bird  or  instrument  to  which  the 
composer  had  listened,  every  thought, 
fact,  argument,  -or  sentiment  which  had 
entered  the  mind  or  heart  of  the  orator, 
had  carried  on  the  education  which  was 
necessary  to  the  production  of  his  mas- 
terpiece. 

You  must  not,  therefore,  ever  think 
that  your  work  is  entirely  done.  You 
must  not  regard  any  thing  as  a  trifle 
which  will  help  you  to  produce  the  grand 
effect  of  life.  No  moment  of  time  is 
contemptible,  no  book,  no  acquaintance, 
no  conversation.  They  all  modify,  all 
educate.  The  seal  will  make  its  exact 
likeness  on  the  wax.  Every  line,  how 
minute  soever,  will  leave  its  counter- 
part on  the  plastic  material.  You  are 
to  stamp  your  character's  image  upon 
the  world  and  upon  your  eternity.    Your 


THE  WOBX  NOT  DOM..  13 

doom  beyond  the  grave  will  answer  to 
your  character  as  the  alto  of  the  wax 
answers  to  the  basic  of  the  seal. 

The  result  is  worth  the  effort.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  previous  toil, 
anxiety,  and  care  of  the  painter,  the 
musician,  and  the  orator,  the  hour  when 
hundreds  and  thousands  arc  standing 
with  rapt  delight  before  the  almost  speak- 
ing canvas,  or  palpitating  with  rapture, 
or  melting  with  emotion  under  the  rav- 
ishing strain  of  the  music,  or  surrender- 
ing themselves  to  the  magic  power  of 
eloquence,  ts  a  reward  to  each  amply 

repaying  all  outlay  of  time  or  thought 
or  care.  The  hour  of  victory  is  worth 
the  year's  toilsome  campaign.  And 
will  it  be  with  you.  Whatever  you  may 
do  towards  educating  yourself,  there  will 
come  times  of  trial  in  winch,  if  you  are 
prepared  for  its  emergencies,  you  will 


14  WHAT  NOW  ? 

find  every  power  taxed  but  every  labor 
rewarded.  There  will  then  be  no  re- 
grets over  privation,  and  study,  and  care. 

If  now,  you  really  feel  the  truth  of 
the  statement  that  your  education  is  not 
finished,  and  that  you  are  to  work  at  it 
as  long  as  you  live,  you  may  be  willing 
to  heed  a  few  suggestions  of  practical 
importance. 

You  have  just  quit  school,  not  ''fin- 
ished,'7 as  the  phrase  of  the  ignorant 
fashionable  world  has  it;  on  the  contra- 
ry, unfinished,  very  much  so  indeed ;  but 
superior  to  badly  taught  girls  in  this — 
that  you  feel  how  very  unfinished  you 
are,  while  they,  pretty  simpletons,  go 
forth  to  simper  bald  sentiment  and  lisp 
bad  French  in  circles  as  silly  as  them- 
selves, to  distress  their  parents,  to  co- 
quette with  their  lovers,  to  ruin  their 
husbands,  and  to  be  mothers  of  children 


THE  REVIEW.  15 

who  shall  inherit  their  own  weaknesses 
and  superficiality.     They  are  surprised 

at  the  question,  What  now?  'What 
now?  indeed!  I  thought  I  had  don< \V 
You  are  not  so.  You  stand  not  at  the 
gate  of  entrance  but  at  the  portal  of  de- 
parture. You  go  forth  to  do  something, 
something  greatly  worth  the  doing. 

Make   a   Review. 

First  of  all,  make  a  review.  What 
have  you  done?  Howr  far  are  you  edu- 
cated !    What  portion  of  your  character 

have  you  inflected?  Wherein  arc  you 
weakest?  To  what  extent  are  you  able 
to  bear  burdens,  to  deny  self,  to  go  for- 
ward alone,  to  help  those  upon  whom 
you  may  lean,  or  those  who  may  lean 
upon  you?  Take  time  to  do  this  calm- 
ly. You  will  have  the  warm  and  cordial 
greetings  of  many  true  friends  and  the 


16  WHAT  NOW  ? 

complimentary  greetings  of  many  hollow 
fashionable  acquaintances.  "When  this 
shall  have  passed,  go  into  yourself  and 
ask,  "What  do  all  these  expect  of  me 
now  ?  my  parents  and  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  the  domestics,  and  my  circle 
of  relatives,  and  my  pastor,  and  his 
neighborhood,  and  my  acquaintances  ?" 
Many  will  expect  nothing.  They  never 
think  of  their  claims  upon  you  or  your 
claims  upon  them,  or  the  momentous  re- 
sponsibilities of  human  existence.  But 
some  will  think,  and  they  will  observe 
you,  and  they  will  judge  your  parents, 
your  teachers,  and  youraelves,  by  the 
views  which  they  perceive  you  take  of 
life  and  its  complicated  relationships. 
If  they  discover  that  you  think  the  whole 
of  education  lies  in  the  little  curriculum 
of  studies  embraced  in  the  plan  of  any 
seminary  now  existing,  they  will  know 


THE  REVI11W.  17 

at  once  that  your  mind  is  too  narrow  to 
take  in  the  great  circle  of  human  duty. 

Remember  also,  young  friend,  that  up 
to  the  time  you  left  school  your  educa- 
tion was  making  progress  under  very 
different  influences  from  those  which  will 
hereafter  attend  it.  In  school  even- 
thing  calculated  to  interrupt  you  was  ex- 
cluded. Self-cultivation  by  direct  effort 
was  secured.  But  these  efforts  were  not 
unaided.  Your  course  was  marked  out 
for  you.  You  have  never  had  to  spend 
a  moment's  thonghi  upon  what  text- 
books should  next  be  studied.  You  had 
them  furnished  to  your  hands.  In  mas- 
tering them  y<>u  had  the  daily  aid  of 
those  who  had  gone  carefully  and  rJB- 
p.'atedlv  over  those  studies,  having  for 
themselves  had  the  advantage  of  excel- 
lent instruction.  And  when  your  teach- 
ers reached  you  they  brought  to  your 


18  WHAT  NOW  ? 

aid  all  the  experience  in  explaining  and 
enforcing  which  they  had  gathered  from 
years  of  labor  spent  on  the  culture  of 
other  pupils.  This  assistance  has  been 
most  material. 

There  will  come  another  most  percep- 
tible difference.  In  schools  and  semina- 
ries you  have  had  the  stimulus  minis- 
tered by  the  literary  society,  by  the 
presence  of  books  and  constant  on-going 
of  study  all  around  you.  You  have 
been  in  classes.  You  have  been  cheered 
by  literary  companionship.  An  emula- 
tion has  been  generated,  and  when  you 
otherwise  would  have  fagged,  the  energy 
and  perseverance  of  some  room-mate  or 
classmate  has  renerved  you  to  your  la- 
bors. You  have  been  travelling  in  a 
crowd  of  gay  companions,  with  now  and 
then  a  halting-time  and  a  season  of  fes- 
tive refreshment  and  a  girding  up  again, 


Till:  BEYIEW.  19 

■8  at  the  close  and  opening  of  school 
sessions. 

Now  you  must  go  alone.  You  must 
select  your  own  books  and  methods  of 
study.  You  must  be  your  own  teacher. 
You  must  study  without  the  excitement 
of  knowing  that  the  recitation-hour  will 
soon  arrive,  and  that  your  reputation 
with  those  whose  opinions  you  respect 
may  be  forfeited  by  an  hour's  idleness. 
You  have  no  rivalry  in  study  now. 
Coolly,  and  from  high  principle,  and  a 
feeling  of  the  necessity  of  so  doing,  must 
you  gnre  yourself  up  to  the  work  of  car* 
tying  forward  your  intellectual  and  moral 
training.  The  props  fall  from  around 
you.  [f  you  have  the  strength  you  are 
expected  to  have  at  the  close  of  your 
school-days,  you  will  stand  and  grow  ; 
if  not.  yon  will  droop  and  dwindle  and 

die. 


20  WHAT  NOW? 

Very  many  young  ladies  regard  every 
school  regulation  as  a  restraint  necessa- 
ry only  for  childhood ;  and  when  they 
are  making  an  estimate  of  the  delight-ful- 
ness of  entering  upon  womanhood,  to  all 
the  caresses  of  friends,  and  flatteries  of 
admirers,  and  brilliance  of  fetes,  they 
add  the  casting  off  of  this  odious  con- 
linement.  Well,  the  truth  is.  that  you 
are  not  to  be  in  precisely  the  same  kind 
of  restraint,  nor  the  same  amount,  but 
unless  you  have  learned  to  bear  the 
absence  from  society  necessary  to  intel- 
lectual culture,  so  as  to  preserve  a  meas- 
ure of  it,  your  mental  growth  has  nearly 
come  to  an  end.  If  you  have  dwelt  upon 
your  departure  from  school  as  setting 
you  free  from  tasks,  from  early  rising, 
from  habits  of  investigation ;  if  you  ex- 
pect to  sleep  in  the  morning  as  long  as 
sloth  soothes,  nnd  to  rise  with  listloss- 


FUTURE  CULTURE.  21 

ness,  and  droop  through  the  day  with 
no  excitement  except  the  thoughts  of 
the  style  of  dress  you  shall  wear  to  the 
next  party  of  pleasure,  your  education 
has  not  been  even  respectably  began. 

Future    Culture. 

Now  you  must  unite  in  yourself  the 
double  character  of  teacher  and  pupil. 
The  reputation  you  have  won  at  school 
has  been  simply  as  a  learner.  You  are 
henceforth  to  achieve4  a  double  reputa- 
tion. You  are  to  teach  yourself.  You 
will  occasionally  review  your  old  stud- 
ies, lor  they  are  the  roots  of  all  the 
growth  in  the  wide  and  flourishing  forest 
of  science  and  literature.  But  you  must 
push  your  studies  beyond,  and  you  must 
keep  up  with  advancing  science  and  lit- 
erature. "  Reading  makes  a  full  man.'' 
snvs  Lord  Bacon.    You  must  read.    You 


22  WHAT  NOW? 

will  read.  The  habits  already  formed 
will  lead  you  to  this.  The  danger  is 
that  you  may  read  the  wrong  kinds  of 
books,  or  read  the  right  kind  improper- 
ly. Upon  these  points  a  few  suggestions 
are  affectionately  addressed  to  your  un- 
derstanding. 

(1.)  Be  content  not  to  read  every  thing. 
You  cannot  go  over  the  whole  field. 
Make  a  selection.  Not  because  it  is  a 
book  has  a  volume  claims  upon  you. 
V<»u  would  not  allow  every  kind  of  man 
to  talk  to  you  for  hours.  Be  as  choice 
of  books,  for  books  are  men's  minds 
made  portable.  As  there  are  so  many 
good  books  in  each  department  of  learn- 
ing, and  whereas  your  time  is  short, 
select  the  very  best. 

(2.)  Be  sure  that  you  never  read  a 
sentence  in  a  book  which  you  would  not 
be  pleased  to  have   vour  father  or  vonr 


FUTURE  CULTURE.  23 

brother  know  to  be  engaging  your  atten- 
tion. Never  read  a  book  which  you 
must  peruse  in  secret. 

(3.)  Beware  of  new  books.  Let  them 
take  their  place  in  society  before  you 
admit  them  to  your  library.  They  will 
do  you  as  much  good  five  years  hence 
as  now,  and  then  those  assayers  of  books, 
the  critics,  will  have  passed  them  through 
the  fire,  and  the  great  public  of  reading 
persons,  often  forming  a  safer  tribunal 
for  the  trial  of  books  than  even  the  crit- 
ics, will  have  stamped  the  mark  of  an 
approximated  title  valuation.  There  are 
enough  books  which  have  survived  three 
generations,  to  engage  your  attention 
while  the  books  published  this  year  will 
be  running  the  gauntlet. 

(4.)  Beware  of  books  with  colored  pa- 
per (overs,  the  cheap  thin  issues  of  a 
depraved  press,  the  anonymous  nouvel- 


24  WHAT  NOW? 

lettes,  and  tales  and  stories.  Better 
never  read  than  peruse  such  trash  as 
these  contain.  Be  sure  that  the  man 
who  wrote  the  book  you  are  reading  is 
really  a  great  man  in  his  department. 
Do  not  be  ashamed  of  being  ignorant  of 
the  productions  of  the  modern,  flippant, 
bizarre  writings,  while  you  are  unfamiliar 
with  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  Spenser 
and  Ben  Jonsori,  the  men  that  "  built  the 
lofty  rhyme/'  and  the  grand  old  fathers 
of  our  noble  English  tongue.  If  you 
read  tjie  modern  books  of  such  men  as 
Macaulay,  and  Hazlitt,  and  Leigh  Hunt, 
read  with  them  the  older  and  the  greater 
men,  to  whom  they  make  constant  refer- 
ence, and  from  whose  "well  of  English 
undefiled  "  they  drew  the  water  spark- 
ling in  their  shallower  channels. 

(5.)  Make  yourself  a  small  good  libra- 
ry to  begin  on.      Let  it   embrace  the 


FUTUBH  CULTURE.  SMI 

works  of  a  very  few  of  the   greatest 

poets,  the  greatest  historians,  the  great- 
est essayists,  the  greatest  metaphysi- 
cians, and  the  greatest  religious  writers 
in  the  language.  Of  course  thi:  Www  a: 
will  lie  at  the  foundation  of  your  stud- 
ies. These,  with  a  very  few  books  in 
each  of  those  departments  of  physical 
science  with  which  a  woman  should  be 
acquainted,  and  the  best  dictionary  of 
the  language,  and,  if  practicable,  an  en- 
cyclopedia, will  make  you  such  a  begin- 
ning as  will  give  strength  and  breadth 
and  consistency  to  your  self-culture.  If 
you  have  been  Studying  other  languages 
let  the  same  rigid  rule  be  applied  to  the 
literature  of  those  languages.  The  care- 
ful reading  of  one  book  will  show  you 
what  you  further  need  in  that  depart- 
ment :  and  so  you  will  pass   over  the 

field  of  English  literature,  omitting  much, 
4 


26  WHAT  NOW  ? 

but  short  as  life  is,  and  many  as  may  be 
your  cares,  you  will  doubtless  by  perse- 
verance obtain  all  that  is  necessary. 

(G.)  You  will  also  have  your  periodi- 
cals. Few  things  produce  superficiality 
more  than  a  promiscuous  reading  of  our 
current  periodicals.  You  will  have  two 
selections  to  make ;  one  from  the  mass 
of  such  publications  soliciting  your  at- 
tention, and  another,  from  those  which 
you  tt,ke,  the  articles  proper  to  be  read. 
It  is  one  of  the  necessities  of  successful 
editing  of  our  monthly  magazines  that  so 
much  useless  matter  must  be  introduced 
to  make  them  popular  enough  to  render 
them  profitable  to  their  proprietors. 
There  is  no  monthly  magazine  in  exist- 
ence, with  which  I  am  acquainted,  which 
should  be  read  in  all  its  articles  by  an 
intellectual  young  lady  seeking  a  high 
and  large  cultivation  of  mind.      Your 


FUTUKE  CULTURE.  27 

own  judgment  must  guide  you  in  this. 
A  very  few  of  the  best  monthlies  and 
quarterlies  should  be  suffered  to  enter 
our  families,  and  from  these  a  young 
lady  of  refinement  may  select,  perhaps, 
all  the  light  reading  necessary  to  mental 
recreation.  It  is  painful  to  observe  how 
low  the  standard  of  mind  among  our  la- 
dies is,  judging  from  the  contents  of  the 
most  popular  magazines  for  ladies.  In 
your  measure  do  what  you  can  to  cor- 
rect this  evil,  by  laboring  to  enlarge  in 
your  sex  the  class  of  more  elevated 
readers. 

The  material  being  gathered,  how  to 
build  is  another  very  grave  question, 
upou  which  the  limits  we  now  assign  our- 
selves will  allow  only  a  few  suggestions. 

1.  Read  slowly.  If  physical  dyspep- 
sia is  caused  as  much  by  rapid  eating 
as  by  a  multifarious   diet,    so   may  an 


28  WHAT  NOW? 

intellectual  dyspepsia  be  superinduced 
by  bolting  your  mental  food.  The  books 
you  read  are  the  pabulum  of  your  mind. 
You  eat  to  live,  not  live  to  eat;  so  you 
must  read  to  live,  not  live  to  read.  It 
is  not  the  amount  read  which  will  fur- 
nish your  mind,  but  the  quality  and 
mode  of  reading.  No  reading  will  profit 
which  is  not  mixed  with  thought,  and 
you  cannot  think  of  that  which  is  rapid- 
ly posing  before  your  eyes. 

2.  Therefore  read  thoughtfully.  Stop 
your  author  and  catechize  him.  See  if 
his  testimony  be  reliable.  Compare  him 
with  himself.  Let  him  not  speak,  and 
run  from  you.  Seize  him  and  hold  him, 
until  you  have  gathered  from  him  all 
that  he  has  to  give.  You  will  wish  to 
make  use  of  your  reading.  To  that  end 
it  must  be  remembered.  Memory  de- 
pends upon  attention.    Attention  requires 


FUTUUE  CULTURE.  29 

time  and  thought.  It  ia  said  of  Edmund 
Burke,  that  he  had  a  great  memory  of 
what  he  read.  Some  one  has  recorded 
of  him  that  lie  read  every  book  aa  though 
it  were  the  only  copy  in  existence,  as 
thotigb  he  wciv  allowed  only  oae  read- 
ing of  its  pagan,  and  as  tbongh  cadi  sen- 
tence contained  whai  was  t<>  he  of  daily. 
and  everlasting,  and  immense  import- 
anee  to  him.  No  wonder  that  he  gar- 
nered  his  learning  so  well!  I  have  ob- 
served among  the  pupils  of  our  schools 
two  classes  of  memory.  There  are  those 
whose  minds  seem  like  pasteboard  spread 

with  fluid  gum,  t<>  which  all  gnats,  all 
down,  all  atoms  drifting  in  the  atmo- 
sphere adhere.  They  are  as  easily  rub- 
bed off  by  any  rough  hand.  I  have  seen 
others  laboring  long  with  apparently  lit- 
tle advancement  But  they  were  plant- 
tboughta  like  trees,  whieh,  the  longer 


30  WHAT  NOW  V 

they  remained  in  the  soil  of  the  mind, 
although  that  soil  might  be  coarse  and 
rocky,  were  striking  their  roots  deeper, 
and  spreading  their  branches,  and  mak- 
ing themselves  ready  to  produce  annual 
fruits.  So  let  it  be  with  your  reading. 
The  memory  of  words  may  not  be  so 
important,  but  if  the  thought  be  great, 
and  the  sentiment  be  just,  it  should  be 
incorporated  with  your  mental  constitu- 
tion, not  laid  on  like  a  robe  for  a  tem- 
porary display  on  a  certain  occasion, 
to  be  thereafter  flung  off  and  forgotten, 
but  taken  into  the  very  heart  of  your 
intellect,  and  passed  into  the  circulation 
of  your  mind's  blood. 

3.  Read  topically.  When  you  strike 
a  rich  vein  run  it  through  your  whole 
library.  You  will  thus  be  able  to  bring 
to  your  mind  all  the  best  that  has  been 
said  upon  a  given  subject  by  a  variety 


FUTURE  CULTURE.  31 

of  minds.  You  will  often  find  it  well, 
for  instance,  when  studying  a  certain 
portion  of  history,  to  examine  and  coin- 
pare  the  biographies  of  the  principal 
actors  in  that  particular  age,  and  then 
see  them  grouped  by  a  few  master  hands. 
Occasionally  our  poets  and  other  word- 
painters  give  you  aid  by  their  analysis 
of  character,  and  fix  correct  views  of 
character  by  striking  imagery  and  well- 
wrought  story. 

4.  Read  for  use,  and  use  what  you 
read.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  intel- 
lectual wine.  You  may  perpetually  be 
stimulating  your  mind  with  intoxicating 
reading.  The  reaction  mud  be  mental 
depression,  and  the  longer  the  stimulus 
be  kept  on,  and  the  longer  the  return  to 
a  natural  healthful  state  be  postpone- 1, 
the  deeper  will  be  the  depression  and 
the  more  weakened  will  be  the  intellect 


HI  WHAT  NOW? 

when  it  wakes  up  from  this  unhealthful 
dreaming.  There  are  those  who  are  thus 
driven  again  and  again  to  the  stimulant 
until  a  mental  delirium  tremens  sets  in 
on  them,  or  they  are  reduced  to  a  driv- 
elling idiocy.  Beware  of  this  kind  of 
reading.  Eead  for  strength,  for  growth, 
for  use.  Review  your  mental  states 
while  reading.  Ask  yourself  again  and 
again,  how  am  I  to  use  this?  What 
does  this  illustrate  or  prove  ?  How  am 
I  to  connect  this  with  what  I  already 
know?  Where  shall  I  place  it  in  my 
mind  to  be  ready  to  draw  upon  at  the 
needful  time  ?  Napoleon  said  he  had 
his  mind  arranged  like  a  bureau  with 
drawers,  so  that  he  could  open  one  and 
study  what  it  contained,  shut  it  up  and 
read  another,  without  mingling  the  con- 
tents. How  different  this  from  many 
minds  which  seem  to  find  their  best  rep- 


YOUR  FIELD.  33 

resentation  in   a  lumber-garret   or  old 
curiosity-shop! 

In  all  your  reading,  dear  young  friend, 
ask  yourself,  how  shall  I  answer  for  this 
at  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ?  To  Him 
you  must  give  an  account.  The  pre- 
cious hours  spent  over  tawdry  stories, 
if  given  to  devout  reading  and  study 
would  fit  you  for  greater  usefulness  up- 
on earth  and  aid  vour  preparation  for 
heaven. 

Your    Field. 

The  question,  "  What  now  ?"  recurs. 
Why  have  you  spent  years  away  from 
home,  after  having  spent  years  at  home, 
in  the  study  of  books  of  human  learning? 
AVhy  this  costly  labor,  this  large  outlay 
of  money,  strength,  and  time?  Have 
you  ever  asked  yourself  this  question 
seriously  ?     Is  all  this  rearing  of  schools 


34  WHAT  NOW  ? 

and  colleges,  these  collections  of  accom- 
plished teachers,  this  expenditure  of  time 
and  intellect  merely  for  a  show,  for  a 
variety  in  the  phases  of  life  ?  Is  there 
nothing  substantial  to  come  as  the  result 
of  it  ?  What  now  ?  You  leave  school. 
Is  all  done?  Verily,  it  were  sad  to  think 
that  all  the  difference  between  educated 
and  uneducated  young  ladies  should  be 
in  the  fact  that  the  former  can  utter  a 
few  phrases  in  foreign  idioms,  thrum  a 
few  tunes  on  a  musical  instrument,  or 
paint  a  few  square  feet  of  canvas.  If 
this  be  all  the  difference,  education  is  a 
hoax  and  the  time  spent  on  it  wasted. 

But  you  know  that  there  is  a  high  and 
great  difference.  You  are  to  go  forth 
to  great  usefulness,  to  do  much  good,  to 
do  much  more  than  the  uneducated.  If 
you  do  not  exert  a  more  powerful  and 
healthful    influence    upon    society   than 


YOUR  FIELD.  35 

those  who  have  not  had  your  advan- 
tages, you  will  do  the  great  mischief  of 
bringing  contempt  upon  education,  espe- 
cially upon  the  education  of  your  sex. 
The  men  around  you  will  be  confirmed 
in  that  low  prejudice  that  it  is  useless  to 
labor  for  the  high  cultivation  of  female 
intellect,  and  thus  you  will  lower  your 
sex  in  the  estimation  of  the  world,  and 
paralyze  efforts  which,  if  successful,  will 
give  the  advantages  of  wholesome  learn- 
ing to  many  young  ladies  who  will  make 
proper  use  of  it.  Remember,  then,  that 
the  interests  of  your  sex  are.  in  a  large 
measure,  in  your  hands 

Young  men.  as  they  close  their  colle- 
giate career,  begin  to  calculate  upon  the 
professions  they  shall  enter.  Young  la- 
dies cannot  do  precisely  as  they,  and 
therefore  often  think  they  have  nothing 
to  do.     They  go  home  and  wait  to  be 


36  WHAT  NOW  ? 

married.  They  marry  just  because  it  is 
usual  for  young  ladies  to  marry,  and 
that  is  as  far  as  they  look,  as  far  as  they 
care.  What  a  mistake  !  Every  woman 
should  feel  that  her  profession  is  to  do 
good,  in  beautiful  ways  becoming  her 
womanly  nature.  If  you,  my  friend, 
have  proper  views  of  your  place  in  soci- 
ety and  your  responsibility  to  God,  you 
will  go  forth  to  use  all  your  present 
knowledge  to  bless  those  around  you, 
and  go  forth  gathering  that  you  may 
scatter  again. 

Is  your  field  of  usefulness  small  ?  You 
will  allow  one  whose  respect  for  you 
imparts  the  disposition  rather  to  lead 
you  in  the  path  of  duty  than  through 
amusing  speculations  or  fanciful  scenes, 
to  survey  with  you  the  field  upon  which 
you  must  now  enter,  and  if  possible 
point  out  methods  in  which  you  can  -fill- 


HOME  DUTIES.  H 

fil  your  engagements  to  society  and  to 
God: 

Home   Duties. 

The  first  who  have  claims  upon  you 
are  your  parents.  Under  God  they  gave 
you  being.  When  you  were  utterly  help- 
less they  sustained  you.  They  have  pro- 
vided for  you  all  the  helps  you  have  had 
in  the  cultivation  of  your  intellect.  They 
submitted  to  the  pain  of  being  separated 
from  you  through  those  years  when  you 
would  have  been  very  interesting  to 
them.  Almost  immediately  after  the 
troublesome  period  of  infancy  and  child- 
hood, just  as  you  were  beginning  to  be 
self-reliant,  as  your  mind  had  expanded 
sufficiently  to  make  you  a  companion  for 
them,  they  endured  the  pain  of  parting, 
solely  for  your  good.  They  knew  also 
that  all  the  months  of  your  society  they 


38  WHAT  NOW  ? 

lost  were  hurrying  you  on  to  that  period 
when  other  love  would  take  the  prece- 
dence of  theirs,  that  love  which  draws 
young  ladies  from  the  home-nest  to  other 
shelter  and  other  society.  Yet,  with  a 
parent's  unselfish  love,  they  gave  you  up 
for  your  own  benefit.  Now  then,  when 
you  return  to  them,  until  the  time  shall 
come  when  he  shall  appear  who  is  to 
abstract  you  from  parental  embraces  to 
try  with  him  life's  ruder  labors  and  more 
ragged  paths,  let  every  day  be  filled  with 
the  gentlest,  sweetest,  most  daughterly 
attentions  to  your  father  and  mother. 

Father  and  mother !  Perhaps  there 
is  only  one  now ;  the  other  may  have 
gone.  Your  father  sits  in  a  lonely  house. 
The  friend  of  his  youth,  who  in  early 
days  entered  with  him  into  love's  yoke- 
fellowship,  your  mother,  has  gone  away 
from  his  side  to  return  no  more.     With 


HOME  DUTIES.  39 

what  solicitous  expectancy  has  he  been 
endeavoring  to  hurry  the  slow  hours  of 
his  desolateness,  to  the  time  when  your 
return  to  the  homestead  shall  gladden 
his -heart  by  a  thousand  little  winning 
attentions,  reminding  him  of  your  moth- 
er's first  devotion.  To  take  that  moth- 
er's place  is  no  small  honor  and  no  small 
labor. 

Or,  it  may  be  that  your  mother  lives, 
lives  to  feel  how  bereft  a  widow  is,  when 
her  stay  has  been  struck  from  beneath 
her ;  and  it  may  be  she  has  denied  her- 
self many  a  comfort  and  studied  a  tighter 
economy,  to  purchase  for  jroo  the  intel- 
lectual furniture  wherewith  your  life  is 
to  be  adorned.  How  many  a  close  cal- 
culation of  means  may  she  have  made, 
how  many  a  night  lain  down  with  an 
aching  head,  because  she  could  not  see 
how  she  was  to  provide  from  her  scanty 


40  WHAT  NOW? 

income  for  all  the  mouths  at  home,  and 
have  sufficient  surplus  to  keep  you  amid 
all  the  advantages  of  a  high  seminary  of 
learning.  And  since  your  father  died, 
and  upon  her  has  devolved  the  work  of 
looking  after  many  a  thing  which  does 
not  usually  fall  to  woman's  sphere,  it 
may  be  that  she  feels  how  much  of  prac- 
tical training  was  omitted  in  her  educa- 
tion, and  seen  at  length  the  folly  of  hav- 
ing wasted  so  many  of  her  school-hours. 
This  may  be  the  secret  of  many  a  pas- 
sage in  her  letters  which  you  thought 
rather  gratuitous,  and  as  reflecting  upon 
your  habits  of  industry.  Lay  them  to 
heart.  Go  home  to  help  and  cheer  her. 
Let  the  harvest  of  her  tears  come  quick- 
ly and  richly  in  your  abundant  cheerful- 
ness in  doing  any  thing  a  daughter  ought 
to  do  for  a  widowed  mother ;  watch  and 
anticipate  her  wants  and  desires,  add  no 


HOME  DUTIES.  41 

feather's  weight  to  her  burdens,  but  be 
hands  and  feet  and  wings  to  your  mother. 

But  both  parents  may  be  living,  living 
in  abundance,  well-educated  themselves, 
moving  in  a  high  social  circle,  to  which 
you  are  to  be  admitted,  and  where  you 
are  to  sustain  the  reputation  of  the  fam- 
ily. In  that  circle  you  may  do  much 
good,  if  to  a  trained  mind  you  have 
added  the  graces  of  a  genuine,  hearty 
piety.  Carry  thither  the  wisdom  which 
cometh  down  from  above,  and  the  Lord 
will  make  you  fruitful  in  all  good  works. 

Your  parents  may  not  have  had  your 
advantages.  In  good  circumstances,  hav- 
ing obtained  a  fortune  which  lias  placed 
them  in  positions  to  make  them  feel  the 
need  of  an  education,  they  early  deter- 
mined that  you  should  never  endure  all 
the  mortifications  to  which   their  want 

of  culture  has  subjected  them,  and  for 
6 


42  WHAT  NOW  ? 

this  reason  they  have  freely  spent  their 
means  to  educate  you.  Or,  having  nat- 
ural talents,  and  lacking  both  the  full 
purse  and  the  accomplishments  of  edu- 
cation, they  have  practised  a  joint  econ- 
omy and  invested  the  whole  of  their 
annual  savings  in  your  education. 

They  expect  you  to  return  to  them  to 
be  the  light  of  the  little  home-circle,  and 
adorn  their  latter  days,  and  by  your 
superior  education  to  be  able  to  make 
such  social  alliances  as  shall  advance 
you.  Are  they  to  be  disappointed  ? 
Nay,  verily.  Lay  not  up  for  yourself 
hours  of  remorseful  self-reproach,  when 
you  shall  have  blasted  their  hopes  and 
hastened  their  departure  from  you.  If 
at  any  time  you  perceive  the  superior- 
ity which  your  training  and  associations 
have  given  you,  as  you  value  the  respect 
of  the  good,  as  you  place  any  estimate 


HOME  DUTIES.  43 

upon  the  invaluable  treasure  of  a  per- 
manent self-respect,  never  for  a  moment, 
by  deed  or  word  or  look,  betray  a  dis- 
dainful sense  of  their  inferiority.  When 
you  take  the  hud  hand  of  that  kind 
father  in  yours,  remember  that  the  fruits 
of  the  toil  which  hardened  those  hands 
were  not  expended  upon  his  own  pleas- 
ures, but  upon  your  education  ;  and  re- 
member that  while  you  were  sheltered 
and  quiet,  turning  your  books,  dancing 
your  snowy  hands  over  the  keys  or 
strings  of  musical  instruments,  that 
mother  was  in  employments  that  brown- 
ed her  complexion,  but  robed  her  daugh- 
ter in  the  dresses  which  fitted  her  to 
mingle  with  the  refined.  If  there  be 
of  unholy  pride  a  more  disgusting  exhi- 
bition than  any  other,  it  is  the  disdain 
with  which  some  girls  who  have  received 
a  little  smattering  of  school-learning  af- 


44  WHAT  NOW? 

feet  to  look  down  upon  their  plain  moth  • 
ers.  My  young  friend,  be  not  so.  The 
truly  refined  and  well-bred  will  despise 
you  if  they  see  such  exhibitions  in  you  ; 
and  you  can  never  by  such  pride  lift 
yourself  from  being  still  that  mother's 
daughter.  I  have  no  kind  of  respect  for 
the  pretension  to  education  which  some 
young  ladies  make  who  are  willing  to 
sit  in  parlor  and  drawing-room,  working 
beautiful  embroidery,  thrumming  the  pi- 
ano or  sighing  over  novels,  while  their 
mothers  are  in  the  nursery,  the  laundry, 
or  the  kitchen,  toiling  amid  domestic 
work,  which  must  be  done  if  the  family 
be  comfortable.  Heaven  have  mercy 
upon  the  wretched  man  who,  for  his  sins, 
may  be  made  the  husband  of  such  a 
heartless  young  person.  If  I  were  advi- 
sing a  young  gentleman  in  search  of  a 
wife.   I   should  carefully  direct   him  to 


HOME  DUTIES.  45 

ascertain  how  the  young  lady  treats  her 
parents,  especially  her  mother.  A  young 
lady  who,  not  habitually,  but  once  a 
month  or  once  a  year  —  I  had  almost 
written  once  in  her  whole  life — ventures 
to  speak  unkindly,  impertinently,  or  un- 
feelingly to  her  mother  will  almost  cer- 
tainly plant  her  husbands  pillow  with 
thorns.  In  all  my  observations  in  fami- 
lies, I  have  carefully  noticed  this;  and 
never  yet  have  seen  a  girl  tenderly  soli- 
citous of  her  mother,  and  attentive  to 
her  wishes  and  desires,  who  did  not 
make  a  wife  to  be  honored  and  loved; 
and  I  never  knew  an  uniilial  girl  that 
did  not  become  a  heartless  wife  and  an 
unhappy  mother,  if  God  called  her  to 
those  positions. 

It  may  be  that  you  have  had  no  aid 
from  your  parents.  Rich  or  poor,  they 
have  never  frit  the  duty  of  educating 


46  WHAT  NOW  ? 

you.  But,  smitten  with  the  love  of 
learning,  you  have  had  the  enterprise 
to  adopt  and  prosecute  your  own  plans, 
and  now  you  go  back  to  them.  If  proper- 
ly trained,  how  radiant  will  be  your  mind 
in  that  untutored  household!  You  will 
not  seek  to  overwhelm  your  parents  with 
the  terms  of  art  and  science  which  you 
have  acquired.  No,  such  pedantry  would 
disfigure  your  intercourse  with  them,  and 
create  stronger  prejudices  against  educa- 
tion. Your  well-trained  faculties  will 
carry  you  with  such  graceful  ease  round 
the  whole  circle  of  filial  duty,  that  they 
will  be  as  conscious,  as  you  are  uncon- 
scious, of  the  new  strength  which  has 
fallen  upon  you.  In  any  case,  you  are 
to  return  to  your  parents  wiser,  better, 
stronger  than  you  came  away.  And  if 
you  have  neither  father  nor  mother,  strive 
to  fill  their  places  in  society,  and  shed  a 


HOME  DUTIES.  47 

pure  light  of  honor  on  the  memory  of 
the  departed. 

What  now?  That  is  the  importunate 
question  of  your  heart.  And  perhaps 
at  home  there  are  several  young  hearts 
beating  with  the  same  anxious  question. 
The  younger  brothers  and  sisters  are 
looking  for  your  return  with  no  small 
amount  of  solicitude.  "Will  sister  be 
changed  any?"  "1  wonder  if  she  will 
talk  as  she  used  to  do?"  "She  has 
been  with  so  many  fine  young  ladies, 
I'm  afraid  I  shall  not  know  how  to  be- 
have when  she  comes."  "  But  wont  she 
tell  us  a  sight  of  things !"  These  and  a 
hundred  similar  questions  and  exclama- 
tions are  made,  in  the  nursery  and  on 
the  play-ground,  by  the  little  folks  at 
home.  And  in  their  dreams  they  have 
pictured  you,  and  made  you  majestic  as 
a  queen  and  lovely  as  an  angel.     Go 


48  WHAT   NOW? 

home,  and  show  them  that  you  are  nei- 
ther; but  what  for  them  is  far  better 
than  queen  or  angel,  you  are  a  wiser, 
more  considerate,  kinder,  and  more  affec- 
tionate sister.  Lead  them.  Set  them 
all  examples  of  filial  devotion.  Teach 
them  truth  and  honor,  patience  and  cour- 
age, meekness  and  strength,  by  a  varied 
but  consistent  example.  Sympathize 
with  them.  Gather  up  the  floating  feel- 
ers of  their  young  spirits,  and  bind  them 
to  your  heart,  Make  them  respect  your 
judgment  by  your  wise  assistance  in  all 
their  pleasures  and  studies,  and  make 
them  feel  that  in  you  they  have  a  friend 
whom  they  may  always  approach,  even 
when  reverence  may  deter  them  from 
entering  the  presence  of  their  parents. 
And  thus,  as  they  grow  older,  you  will 
exert  an  influence  upon  them  which  shall 
go  on  widening  with  the  channels  of  their 


HOME  DUTIES.  49 

several  influences,  and  descending  in 
blessings  upon  their  children  and  their 
children's  children. 

There  is  one  means  by  which  you  can 
be  very  useful  to  your  younger  brothers 
and  sisters.  If  you  are  as  thoughtful  as 
you  should  be,  you  make  many  reviews 
of  the  several  stages  of  your  education. 
You  perceive  wherein  you  have  been 
neglected,  or  what  you  have  passed  over 
too  superficially.  You  can  prevent  or 
correct  these  things  in  the  younger  chil- 
dren. You  can  give  them  the  right 
"start"  in  their  studies,  and  direct  them 
until  they  Bhall  have  formed  proper  hab- 
its. The  most  important  class  in  an 
institution  of  learning  is,  perhaps,  the 
youngest.  The  mode  is  so  much  more 
important  than  the  subject  of  study !  A 
young  person  who  has  learned  how  to 
study  may,  wTith  comparative  ease,  ac- 


50  WHAT  NOW? 

quire  all  necessary  learning.  The  drudg- 
ery of  the  schools  is  occasioned  by  a  neg- 
lect of  the  first  instructors  to  teach  their 
pupils  how  to  form  proper  habits.  All 
this  drudgery  you  may  prevent,  so  far 
as  your  brothers  and  sisters  are  con- 
cerned ;  and  by  so  doing  you  will  be  a 
life-long  blessing  to  them  ;  you  will  avert 
solicitudes  and  anxieties,  feverish  tears 
and  discouraging  despondency,  by  teach- 
ing a  child,  not  his  lesson,  but  how  to 
acquire  that  lesson.  Your  education 
will  certainly  be  considered  worthless, 
if  you  cannot  assume  the  office  of  teacher 
to  the  younger  children.  If  you  do  your 
duty,  the  expense  of  their  education  will 
be  lessened,  the  time  they  spend  from 
home  will  be  shortened,  and  their  stay 
at  high-schools  and  colleges  be  made  so 
much  more  pleasant.  There  is  such  a 
sweet  and  hallowed  power  in  a  sister's 


HOME  DUTIES.  51 

love,  that  you  will  lose  much  of  the  hap- 
piness  of  your  existence  upon  earth  if 
you  fail  to  exert  it. 

There  is  another  sphere  of  usefulness 
which  lies  very  near  all  our  educated 
young  ladies,  ami  which  lies  too  much 
neglected.  I  allude  to  the  domestics  in 
families.  You  have  certainly  grown  up 
with  very  false  views,  if  you  have  learn- 
ed to  look  upon  servants  as  another  and 
an  inferior  race  of  beings.  They  in 
human  and  immortal.  They  are  your 
fellow-sinners.  Ranks  and  orders  in 
society  are  necessary  for  our  well-being 
upon  earth,  and  no  man  should  seek  to 
level  all  to  the  same  position.  God  has 
instituted  service,  and  in  its  place  it  is 
honorable.  And  remember  that  your 
Maker  is  at  such  an  infinite  elevation 
above  all  classes  of  society,  that  the  dis- 
tance between  the  most  menial  servant 


52  WHAT  NOW  ? 

and  his  God  seems  no  greater  than  that 
between  an  earthly  monarch  and  his 
eternal  King  ;  even  as  we  do  not  think 
of  a  mountain-top  on  our  earth  as  being 
nearer  to  a  fixed  star  than  the  bottom  of 
the  lowest  valley.  While  it  is  quite 
proper  that  you  should  be  mistress  and 
another  woman  should  be  servant  while 
you  are  both  together  upon  earth,  re- 
member that  you  will  both  soon  stand 
before  the  throne  of  God,  where  the  only 
distinctions  will  lie  in  the  larger  or  small- 
er development  of  the  principles  of  holi- 
ness. These  thoughts  should  have  an 
influence  to  lead  you  to  be  kind  and 
gentle  with  the  servants  about  your 
father's  house,  and  to  carry  the  same 
benignity  with  you  when  you  assume 
the  place  of  mistress  in  your  own  house, 
if  God  design  this  for  you. 

You  must  give   an   account   for   the 


HOME  DUTIES.  53 

kind  of  influence  you  exert  upon  the 
servants  when  you  return  home.  Some 
of  them  may  be  old.  Perhaps  some  of 
them  nursed  you  in  your  infancy,  and 
perhaps,  as  is  sometimes  the  case  in 
established  families,  both  in  England 
and  America,  some  of  them  nursed  your 
father  or  your  mother.  They  will  regard 
you  with  much  tenderness.  In  any  case, 
going  from  school  with  all  the  accom- 
plishments which  the  unlearned  servants 
will  imagine  you  possess,  whether  you 
do  or  not,  you  will  be  able  to  exert  grea  t 
influence  over  them.  Now  how  will  you 
answer  to  the  Father  of  your  spirit,  if 
you  spend  week  after  week  and  month 
after  month  in  the  pursuit  of  fashionably 
pleasure,  or  even  in  the  selfish  cultiva- 
tion of  your  intellect,  and  never  spend 
one  hour  in  teaching  them  the  wray  to 
<;<><!  while  they  have  been  so  near  you, 


54  WHAT  NOW? 

and  your  influence  over  them  is  so  great 
for  good  or  evil?  Put  it  to  your  own 
conscience.  If  you  let  them  see  in  you, 
in  private  as  well  as  in  public,  that  the 
ruling  power  in  your  heart  is  not  vanity 
or  pride  or  worldly-mindedness,  but  the 
love  of  Jesus  and  of  doing  good  to  all  for 
his  sake,  you  will  be  educating  them  for 
a  proper  discharge  of  duty  in  this  life 
and  for  the  life  to  come,  even  if  you 
never  attempt  to  give  them  a  sentence 
of  oral  instruction  in  the  things  pertain- 
ing to  godliness.  But  if,  while  a  holy 
and  lofty  life  shall  be  establishing  a  pow- 
erful sway  over  them,  you  take  proper 
occasions  to  cultivate  their  hearts  by  a 
regular,  devoted  attention  to  them  on 
set  and  proper  occasions,  you  will  be 
preparing  stars  for  your  crown  in  heaven. 
Reflect  also  upon  the  facts  that  the 
happiness  or  misery  of  any  family  de- 


HOME  DUTIES.  55 

pends  in  a  large  measure  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  servants,  and  that  one  good 
or  bad  servant  has  great  effect  upon  the 
character  of  the  others.  And  extern! 
this  observation  to  the  fact  thai  one 
happy  family  in  a  village  or  town  or 
country  neighborhood,  both  by  its  ox- 
ample  and  by  the  natural  contagion  of 
pleasurable  emotions,  sheds  a  delightful 
social  charm  all  around  it.  Now,  then 
if  you  can  gain  a  right  influence  over 
the  servants  in  your  father's  house,  so 
as  to  educate  them  in  any  measure  to 
act  by  impulses  of  right  principles,  you 
will  do  them  good,  you  will  relieve  the 
weight  that  lies  upon  your  mother,  you 
will  destroy  many  discomforts  which  dis- 
turb your  father,  you  will  lubricate  the 
joints  of  the  domestic  framework,  you 
will  add  another  to  the  number  of  the 
happy  families,  and  thus  make  yourself 


56  WHAT  NOW  ? 

delightfully  felt  perhaps  to  the  remotest 
verge  of  society,  and  to  the  last  genera- 
tion of  men. 

The  family  circle  is,  certainly,  wom- 
an's most  appropriate  theatre.  There 
she  is  to  work,  there  to  shine.  She  is 
cut  off  from  the  fields  upon  which  men 
of  ability  and  ambition  distinguish  them- 
selves. She  seldom  appears  on  the  fo- 
rum, never  in  the  battle-rage.  There 
can  be  no  female  Napoleon,  no  female 
Daniel  Webster.  But  woman  is  human. 
She  has  ambition  as  certainly  and  as 
powerfully  as  men,  and  when  that  ambi- 
tion is  unsanctified,  she  will  seek  her 
trophies  in  the  triumphs  of  the  ball- 
room, and  exercise  her  diplomacy  in  the 
finesse  of  coquetry.  But,  alas !  how 
unsatisfactory  are  the  results.  The 
more  and  the  greater  the  triumphs,  the 
more  is  she  laying  up  for  herself  stores 


HOME  DUTIES.  57 

of  remorse  and  grief.  If  she  venture 
upon  literature,  and  even  attempt  sci- 
ence in  the  way  of  authorship,  she  is 
made  to  feel  the  prejudice  which  pre- 
vails in  society  against  writing-women. 
Men  may  admire  Madame  de  Stael  and 
Mary  Somerville,  bnt  whatever  tribute 
their  abilities  and  learning  may  wring 
from  the  head,  is  usually  given  with  a 
corresponding  diminution  of  the  more 
precious  and  spontaneous  tribute  of  the 
heart*.  You  must  have  learned  already 
that  an  ounce  oMove  is  worth  a  ton  of 
admiration. 

But  when  the  intellect  of  woman  is 
sanctified,  and  her  labors  lie.  in  the  di- 
rect path  of  philanthropy,  all  men  feel 
that  they  are  appropriate  to  the  gentle- 
ness, and  loveliness,  and  unselfishness 
of  her  sex.  In  her  own  family  is  her 
nearest  and  best  field;   and  while  cir- 


58  WHAT  NOW? 

cumstances  may  occasionally  give  her 
opportunities  of  extending  her  labors  be- 
yond, they  are  always  expected  to  be 
another  development  of  this  domestic 
culture.  A  young  lady  may  begin  her 
work  at  once  and  at  home  by  making 
that  home  more  beautiful,  in  the  eyes  of 
all  its  inmates,  by  a  thousand  little 
nameless  acts  of  kindness  and  good 
manners.  And  how  finely  have  Chris- 
tian manners  been  called  the  minor  mor- 
als !  So  much  of  morals  is  there  in  a 
proper  style  of  manners,  that  for  useful- 
ness, great  and  permanent  usefulness, 
a  lady  may  almost  as  well  be  destitute 
of  integrity  as  of  courtesy,  and  winning, 
sweet,  womanly  tact  and  address.  I 
would  have  you  cultivate  these,  not  for 
display,  but  as  widening  your  real  influ- 
ence for  good,  and  as  being  one  of  the 
most  effectual  methods  of  making  vour 


TEACHING.  59 

home  happy  to  yourself  and  happy  to 
those  whom  you  are  most  bound  to  love. 
When  this  is  done,  when  by  good 
husbanding  of  time,  you  shall  have  found 
space  for  the  discharge  of  all  your  priva  t  e 
duties,  and  with  your  mother  and  sisters, 
taken  your  share  of  the  most  unpleasant 
as  well  as  the  most  pleasant  portions  of 
domestic  service — which,  in  every  house- 
hold, no  matter  how  many  servants 
there  may  be,  will  fall  upon  the  ladies 
of  the  house — you  may  still  find  some 
time  to  devote  to  your  neighbors,  and 
by  kind  offices  bind  your  family  to  the 
families  in  your  immediate  vicinity. 

Teaching. 

It  is  the  remark  of  one  of  the  great- 
est women  of  this  age,  Mary  Lyon,  that 
14  teaching  is  really  the  business  of  almost 
every  useful   woman."     Look   through 


CO  WHAT  NOW  P 

society  and  see  if  this  be  not  true.  Now 
it  does  seem  to  me  that  no  young  lady 
can  be  properly  educated  who  has  not 
always  pursued  her  studies  with  a  view 
to  teaching  in  some  position.  She  may 
not  look  to  employment  in  our  semina- 
ries, but  she  will  have  teaching  in  some 
of  its  modes  always  before  her.  A 
young  lady  who  leaves  school  only  to  be 
a  woman  and  be  married,  having  no 
plans  of  usefulness  in  her  mind,  is  not 
worth  a  husband,  unless,  indeed,  she 
should  find  her  mate  in  the  young  man 
who  has  passed  through  college  simply 
for  the  purpose  of  graduating ;  and  such 
a  couple  would  be  a  disgrace  to  their 
generation.  You  must  aim  at  useful- 
ness. 

Upon  quitting  school  conscience  asks 
What  now?  and  your  Maker  and  your 
race  propound  this  question  solemnly  to 


TEACHING.  61 

your  soul.  Let  your  answer  be,  to  do 
something  for  my  Lord.  Determine  to  do 
something.  One  of  the  best  methods 
of  making  larger  acquisitions  is  to  use 
your  present  acquirements  promptly, 
cheerfully,  and  continually.  You  must 
be  willing  to  be  useful  in  the  first  field 
that  offers.  Dr.  Johnson  has  said  that 
the  man  who  waits  until  he  can  find 
some  opportunity  of  being  useful  on  a 
magnificent  scale,  will  be  of  little  ser- 
vice to  society.  Enter  the  first  opening, 
and  as  you  prove  yourself  faithful  in 
that  which  is  least,  your  Lord  will,  by- 
and-by.  make  a  way  for  you  to  be  faith- 
ful in  that  which  is  greatest. 

If  determined  to  be  useful,  almost  the 
first  suggestion  to  your  own  mind  will 
be  to  teach.  If  there  be  no  younger 
brother  or  sister  to  be  instructed,  there 
are  some  poor  children  in  your  nei^h- 


62  WHAT  NOW  ? 

borhood  who  have  no  means  of  being 
educated.  Could  you  do  better  than  to 
gather  them  together  and  devote  an  hour 
or  two  every  day  to  their  instruction  ? 
The  most  certain  way  to  become  exact 
in  any  department  is  to  teach.  It  will 
be  one  of  the  most  profitable  of  all  your 
pursuits.  The  very  fact  of  its  being  a 
gratuity  will  place  you  upon  the  bare 
platform  of  principle,  as  you  will  teach 
for  the  simple  object  of  doing  good.  You 
will  thus  be  taking  up  the  ground  which 
paid  teachers  can  never  cultivate.  In 
the  group  of  ragged  children  in  your 
village  may  be  a  few  minds  of  superior 
natural  abilities.  But  no  man  cares  for 
their  souls.  They  are  "  pregnant  with 
celestial  fire."  It  may  be  theirs  to  "  sway 
the  rod  of  empire,'7  or  "wake  to  ecstasy 
the  living  lyre,"  if  some  intelligent  and 
kind  spirit  will   seize  the   direction   of 


TEACHING.  63 

their  earliest  studies.  Would  it  not  be 
a  great  and  a  good  work  to  gather  a  few 
of  those  intellects  around  you,  and  by 
the  sweet  persuasives  which  your  sei 
knows  so  well  how  to  use,  bind  them  to 
your  love,  and  kindle  in  them  a  hunger- 
ing and  thirsting  after  righteousness  and 
truth?  You  might  have  them  only  a 
few  months  or  even  a  few  weeks,  but 
you  might  in  that  time  place  the  key  of 
knowledge  in  the  hands  of  some  strong 
and  inquisitive  intellect,  which  will  bring 
out  treasures  for  the  enriching  of  its 
generation.  You  may  plant  a  single 
good  principle,  which  in  moments  of 
powerful  temptation,  when  the  fate  of 
thousands  may  hang  upon  the  decision  of 
that  single  individual,  may  enable  him 
to  dare  to  do  right,  and  thus  send  a 
widespread  blessing  to  ten  thousand 
homes. 


64  WHAT  NOW? 

If  you  should  ever  undertake  a  work 
like  this,  you  will  meet  with  many  dis- 
couragements from  your  own  want  of 
self-control,  and  of  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual preparation  for  this  work ;  and  you 
will  be  discouraged  by  the  obstinacy,  the 
carelessness,  the  want  of  interest  in  your 
pupils.  This  will  be  the  more  unpleas- 
ant to  you  as  you  will  think  that,  when 
you  give  your  time  and  strength  without 
fee  or  reward,  the  least  your  pupils  can 
do  is  to  attend  and  to  labor  as  closely  as 
you  do.  But  remember  that  they  have 
nothing  like  the  view  of  the  importance 
of  an  education  which  leads  you  to  en- 
gage in  this  work.  Keep  your  heart  up. 
The  husbandman  has  patience  and  waits 
for  the  early  and  the  latter  rain.  When 
you  shall  be  sleeping  in  the  last  bed  of 
mortals,  the  rude,  hard,  apparently  in- 
tractable boy,  whom  you  drew  from  the 


TEACHING. 

crowd  of  ragged  and  soiled  urchins,  may 
have  his  spirit  kindled  by  the  fires  from 
heaven.  The  spark  you  dropped  on  the 
day  when  you  were,  perhaps,  most  dis- 
couraged in  regard  to  his  case,  and  when 
you  went  to  give  him  your  last  lesson  and 
admonition,  may  be  fanned  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  until  his  kindled  soul  shall  be 
flaming  in  spiritual  power  and  glory 
amid  the  institutions  of  Christ's  church. 
It  seems  to  me.  that,  to  a  Christian 
teacher,  few  things  could  be  more  grati- 
fying than  to  know  that  those  of  his 
pupils  whose  circumstances  lifted  them 
above  the  necessities  of  laboring  for  a 
support,  were  employing  themselves  in 
teaching  those  to  whom  no  other  hands 
would  unfold  the  book  of  knowledge.  It 
would  be  so  in  accordance  with  that  cli- 
max in  the  Lord's  description  of  the 
bringing  in  of  his  own  dispensation  of 


G6  WHAT  NOW? 

power,  and  mercy  and  glory,  "and  to 
the  poor  the  gospel  is  preached.7' 

I  speak  to  you  as  to  a  Christian.  If  you 
are  not,  if  you  have  never  had  the  wash- 
ing of  regeneration  aud  the  renewing  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  then  the  first  great 
business  of  life  has  up  to  this  time  been 
neglected,  and  must  take  precedence  of 
every  thing  else.  Whatever  other  em- 
ploy men t  may  engage  your  faculties, 
however  important  in  itself  considered, 
it  is  an  intruder  upon  more  important 
things.  It  is  most  melancholy  to  reflect 
that  you  have  passed  through  the  whole 
of  jrour  education  an  impenitent  sinner, 
under  the  condemnation  of  God,  with- 
out peace  of  conscience  and  the  repose 
of  faith  so  essential  to  the  highest  suc- 
cess. 

It  is  important  that  educated  minds 
should  be  accompanied  by  piety.    Piety 


TEACHING.  67 

gives  to  education  its  most  graceful  beau- 
ty, and  education  increases  the  influence 
of  piety.  In  your  case,  whatever  influ- 
ence you  have  had  at  school  has  been 
uiven  directly  against  Jesus.  You  have 
been  so  far  from  doing  any  thing  for  your 
Lord,  that  you  have  actually  been  stand- 
ing in  the  way  of  the  advancement  of 
others.  The  more  accomplished  you 
have  become,  the  more  fascinating  have 
been  your  manners,  the  larger  the  injury 
you  have  wrought. 

Here,  then,  are  several  considerations 
to  lead  you  to  seek  immediately  alter  a 
change  of  heart,  a  genuine,  spiritual  con- 
version. 

1.  You  have  been  doing  an  injury  to 
the  cause  of  Christ  through  all  your 
course  at  school,  and  your  faculties 
ought,  if  possible,  to  be  doubly  conse- 
crated to  God,  that,  as  for  as  possible. 


68  WHAT  NOW? 

you  may  counteract  in  society  the  evil 
you  have  already  done. 

2.  Through  all  your  school-course  you 
have  been  hardening  your  heart  and 
postponing  the  hour  of  your  return  to 
God.  You  have,  therefore,  been  culti- 
vating a  habit  which  will  probably  at 
last  overpower  you  unless  suddenly  bro- 
ken by  God's  power.  You  have  said 
that  you  could  not  be  pious  at  school, 
because  of  the  many  studies  which  en- 
gaged you,  and  because  of  your  youth, 
and  because  you  could  not  endure  the 
ridicule  of  your  companions.  You  have 
given  temporary  quiet  to  your  con- 
science by  promising  that  immediately 
upon  leaving  school  you  would  give  your 
heart  to  God.  That  time  has  arrived. 
Do  you  feel  more  like  being  pious  than 
you  did  a  year  or  two  ago  ?  No,  not  so 
much.    Allow  me.  my  dear  young  friend, 


TEACHING.  C9 

to  deal  faithfully  with  you,  and  show 
you  what  will  be  your  probable  future 
course,  judging  by  your  past.  You  will 
say  that  you  cannot  commence  the  greal 
work  of  salvation  now  because  you  are 
in  the  midst  of  the  greetings  of  friends, 
and  that  such  circumstances  are  surely 
not  favorable  to  religion.  You  will  con- 
clude to  postpone  the  work  until  you 
shall  have  passed  through  these  festivi- 
ties. But,  my  friend,  when  will  they 
close?  When  will  you  cease  to  accept 
invitations  and  to  reciprocate  by  hav- 
ing parties  of  pleasure  at  your  fathers 
house?  When  will  you  cease  to  travel, 
and  settle  into  a  domestic  routine?  In 
this  interval  your  accomplishments  will 
probably  be  bringing  suitors  around  you, 
and  your  vanity  will  be  kept  in  a  fever- 
ish state,  and  perhaps  one  may  begin  to 
excite  in   von  a  more  nnd    more  tender 


70  WHAT  NOW? 

interest,  and  you  will  not  think  of  the 
Creator's  claims  while  the  love  of  the 
creature  will  be  so  active  at  your  heart ; 
and  then  will  come  the  engrossing  pre- 
liminaries of  marriage  and  all  the  higher 
festivities  of  that  occasion,  and  then  the 
gradually  increasing  cares  of  domestic 
life  ;  and  so  you  will  go  on  with  your 
procrastination  until  you  shall  have  set- 
tled into  a  hard,  cold,  Christless  woman 
of  the  world,  exerting  a  most  injurious 
influence  over  your  husband  and  chil- 
dren. Oh,  this  were  a  result  very  great- 
ly to  be  dreaded.  But  to  it  you  will 
almost  certainly  come  at  last,  unless,  by 
great  decision  of  character,  you  resolve 
to  put  off  this  work  no  moment  longer. 
And  may  the  Spirit  of  all  grace  help 
you  so  to  do. 

3.   Another   reason  why  you   should 
seek  these  great  spiritual  changes  is,  that 


TEACHING.  71 

there  can  be  no  great  usefulness  without 
true  piety.  Unrenewed  men  may  often 
seem  to  be  actuated  by  sentiments  of  phi- 
lanthropy, and  do  those  things  which  will 
be  beneficial  to  their  race ;  but  to  enter 
upon  and  prosecute  a  life-long  course  of 
usefulness  requires  the  steady  aid  of  a 
consistent  piety.  All  your  plans  will 
probably  fail  unless  you  be  sustained  by 
motives  higher  than  any  which  can  be 
drawn  from  earth.  To  do  and  to  suffer 
for  Christ's  sake  sanctifies  every  pursuit 
and  every  pang.  Before  all  things,  and 
above  all  things,  my  young  friend,  let 
me  beseech  you  to  seek  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  its  righteousness. 

But  perhaps,  through  your  whole  stay 
at  school,  you  have  been  endeavoring  to 
cultivate  that  simple,  yet  powerful  piety 
which  springs  from  faith  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.      If  so,  you  will  at  once 


72  WHAT   NOW  ? 

begin  to  reap  the  benefits  of  habits  so 
early  formed.  You  will  have  the  com- 
fort of  feeling  that,  if  you  should  be 
taken  early  from  the  world,  you  have 
left  an  impression  which  may  endure  for 
centuries  ;  and  that  that  influence  will 
both  pass  out  into  the  great  world  with 
your  younger  schoolmates,  and  will  also 
descend  upon  successive  generations  of 
scholars.  This  is  the  nature  of  school 
influence. 

But  in  addition  to  this,  you  have  the 
whole  power  of  habit  to  cooperate  with 
you  in  your  efforts  in  spiritual  self-im- 
provement, and  in  doing  good  to  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  others.  This  is  a 
most  comfortable  fact  in  your  case,  the 
full  value  of  which  you  could  not  prop- 
erly appreciate,  unless  you  could  feel 
this  power  suddenly  withdrawn  from 
you,  and  flung,  with  all  its  magnitude, 


TEACHING.  73 

as  a  direct  obstacle  in  your  way.  Be 
grateful  to  God  for  all  the  influences 
which  his  providence  has  brought  to  bear 
upon  you  in  your  spiritual  growth,  and 
be  humbled  at  the  remembrance  of  the 
too  small  improvement  made. 

But  what  now?  You  surely  have  not 
supposed  the  cultivation  of  piety  to  be 
on  a  footing  with  the  economic  regula- 
tions of  the  school,  and  to  be  abandoned 
with  those  regulations.  You  are  to  go 
forward.  You  are  to  become  more  and 
more  devoted  to  the  service  of  God, 
more  and  more  self-sacrificing,  more  and 
more  useful.  Make  a  review  of  your 
religious  life  while  you  were  at  school, 
and  see  wherein  it  is  defective  according 
to  the  Gospel  standard,  and  set  yourself 
to  work,  by  the  aids  of  God's  Spirit  to 
make  the  necessary  amendment,  resol- 
ving to  guard  against  those  temptations 
10 


74  WHAT  NOW  ? 

which  heretofore  have  proved  too  strong 
for  your  weak  faith. 

Thus  far  what  is  written  addresses  it- 
self mainly  to  those  who  have  some  do- 
mestic ties  and  social  position.  But,  in 
America  especially,  there  are  many 
young  ladies  who  have  been  almost 
friendless  for  many  years,  in  whom  there 
has  been  an  indomitable  energy  and  an 
earnest  desire  to  make  themselves,  by 
all  possible  culture,  the  peers  of  their 
more  favored  sisters,  by  preparing  them- 
selves thoroughly  for  all  that  may  justly 
be  regarded  as  a  true  woman's  rightful 
work. 

It  is  a  moral  tonic  to  society  to  wit- 
ness the  progress  of  such  girls.  They 
combine  a  force  of  character  which  is 
manly,  with  a  tact  that  is  beautifully 
womanly.  They  deny  themselves.  They 
are  heroic.     The  greatness  of  the  object 


TEACHING.  75 

they  set  before  them  expands  their  char- 
acter in  its  pursuit.  The  pressure  upon 
them  gives  compactness  to  all  their  fac- 
ulties. They  are  a  spectacle  to  men  and 
angels.  One  such  woman  cuts  down  the 
undergrowth,  ami  B  route  for  the 

feet  of  feebler  sisters  through  the  thick 
social  forest. 

And  yet  they  are  women,  with  all  the 
craving  for  sympathy,  appreciation,  and 
love  which  the  gteal  Creator  has  made  B 
characteristic  of  their  sex.  An  acute 
pain,  not  of  jcahmsy  ami  envy,  often 
9mitefl  them  when  they  naturally  con- 
tract   their    loneliness   with    the    opulent 

surroundings  of  schoolmates  who  have 
never  to  practise  those  small  economies 
which  make  them  seem  mean,  but  which 
they  know  to  be  absolutely  essential  to 
a  continuance  of  their  studies  and  the 
successful    completion    of    their    course 


76  WHAT  NOW? 

When  the  class  shall  graduate,  there  will 
be  no  father,  mother,  sister,  or  brother 
to  take  a  fond  pride  in  the  honors  which 
these  an  cheered  scholars  have  gained. 
They  carry  no  pleasure  to  parents  or  sis- 
ters or  brothers.  They  have  never  had 
and  will  not  soon  have  any  domestics  to 
care  for  their  interests  or  to  be  cared  for. 
The  future  seems  very  barren  to  such 
young  hearts. 

My  young  friend,  perhaps  some  such 
condition  is  yours.  Let  me  speak  a  ten- 
der word  to  you.  There  are  elements  in 
your  case  from  which  you  may  derive 
much  comfort.  Every  woman,  however 
favored  or  unfavored  by  fortune,  will 
have  seasons  of  terrible  trial.  Such  is 
woman's  history  everywhere.  When 
these  trials  come  to  you,  you  will  not 
have  been  weakened  by  early  indul- 
gence.    Your  classmate,  whoso  position 


TEACHING.  77 

has  seemed  so  enviable,  may  be  called 
to  endure  the  same  blow  which  shall  fall 
upon  you ;  but  you  will  have  been  pre- 
pared, by  all  you  have  suffered,  to  en- 
dure the  new  distress  with  a  fortitude 
which  has  been  well  trained.  If  called 
to  walk  a  rough  and  stony  road,  your 
feet  will  not  have  a  shrinking,  sensitive 
way,  which  makes  the  hard  path  intol- 
erable. You  will  pass  with  graceful  ease 
over  obstacles,  the  sight  of  which  will 
make  weaker  women  faint. 

Character  is  every  thing.  As  men 
grow  wiser,  tiny  learn  to  found  their 
admiration  of  women  more  and  more 
upon  character,  and  less  and  less  upon 
antecedents.  You  will  be  the  very  help- 
meet a  strong  young  man  will  need  and 
a  prudent  young  man  will  seek.  The 
light  that  is  in  you  will  shine.  In  this 
dark  world  the  tight  attracts.    And  when 


78  WHAT  NOW? 

he  shall  come  to  you  and  join  his  fur 
tunes  for  life  with  yours,  he  will  find  the 
firmest  hand  to  uphold  him  in  that  which 
clasps  him  with  a  wifely  love.  And  then 
your  honor  will  grow.  And  then  that 
esteem,  which  is  the  solid  foundation  of 
all  love  that  lasts,  will  increase  as  those 
years  come  which  break  the  attractive- 
ness of  those  whose  whole  existence  de- 
pends upon  physical  beauty  or  social 
surroundings. 

There  is  a  beauty  in  strength.  That 
beauty  is  yours.  Keep  on  your  way. 
There  is  room  for  you.  All  society  fluc- 
tuates, but  the  right  and  the  good  are 
indestructible.  It  is  for  a  wise  purpose 
that  the  good  Father  has  put  you  thus 
unpropped  to  grow.  He  has  work  for 
the  vine,  which  must  cling  to  the  elm  or 
to  the  trellis,  and  He  has  work  for  the 
solitary  tree,  which  He  enuses   to  jrrow 


TEACHING.  79 

up  into  great  bulk  and  strength  on  the 
wide  and  unprotected  plain,  or  on  the 
top  of  the  bare,  bleak  mountain. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  so- 
cial antecedents  of  any  young  lady,  there 
are  reasons  why  she  should  not  sit  down 
in  self-indulgent  or  in  despairing  idle- 
ness, but  eater  the  large  human  society 
around  her,  to  be  an  active  element 
among  her  fellow-men. 

There  are  many  public  duties  of  reli- 
gion to  the  strict  and  proper  perform- 
ance of  which  educated  young  ladies 
should  very  frequently  turn  their  atten- 
tion. Whatever  influence  is  gained  by 
the  reputation  of  being  educated,  ought 
to  be  thrown  upon  the  side  of  true,  vital 
godliness,  and  in  favor  of  all  those  move- 
ments which  are  made  to  plant  the  cross 
in  every  human  heart.  This  is  a  busy 
time  in  the  world.     The  uprolling  of  the 


80  WHAT  NOW? 

night  of  ages  which  hung  in  darkness  on 
the  human  mind ;  the  rapid  development 
of  physical  science  ;  the  sudden  trans- 
mission of  intelligence  ;  the  power  of  the 
press  as  the  power  of  an  uprisen  sun 
flinging  almost  immediate  light  on  a  hem- 
isphere— all  these  things  have  quickened 
the  human  mind  into  wonderful  activity. 
Men  are  more  enterprising  than  of  old. 
It  is  little  to  go  round  the  whole  earth 
now  for  the  purpose  of  compassing  a 
point  of  policy  or  opening  a  market  for 
trade.  Amid  all  this  stir,  bustle,  and 
noise,  while  caste  is  breaking,  and  men 
are  leaping  the  walls  of  national  preju- 
dices built  through  centuries  of  years  ; 
while  old  power  is  seeking  to  keep  its 
own,  and  new  revolutions  are  seeking  to 
overturn  venerable  establishments,  there 
is  unwonted  activity  among  all  the  agen- 
cies for  good  and  evil.     Sin  is  finding 


TEACHING.  81 

more  power  in  the  animated  depravity 
of  the  human  heart.  Inquiry  is  making 
free  with  ancient  errors  and  time-hon- 
ored truths,  and  Christ  and  Belial  are 
meeting  with  more  antagonism  in  court 
and  camp,  in  the  fbrom  and  in  the  mar- 
ket-place. 

This,  then,  is  no  time  for  the  educated 
of  either  sex  to  keep  still.  Every  woman 
must  take  her  position  in  this  conflict. 
You  will  fail  of  the  great  earthly  end  of 
your  being  educated,  unless  you  place 
yourself  distinctly  on  the  side  of  every 
good  cause,  every  cause  which  labors  for 
the  elevation  of  humanity  by  the  propa- 
gation of  the  principles  of  the  Gospel. 
This  you  may  do  without  transcending 
the  proper  limits  of  female  delicacy  ;  and 
to  do  your  part  in  society,  you  must  al- 
ways remember  that  you  are  a  woman. 
With  the  graceful  restraints  of  womanly 

What  Now?  11 


82  WHAT  NOW? 

modesty  about  you,  you  may  make  your 
mark  upon  the  world,  which  shall  be 
more  powerful  and  influential  than  any 
inscriptions  upon  monumental  marble. 

To  do  your  share  of  the  work  of  the 
world's  regeneration,  see  what  forms  of 
error  prevail  immediately  around  you ; 
and  without  any  romantic  ideas  of  mag- 
nificent achievements  in  the  moral  world, 
take  your  own  neighborhood,  and  strive, 
not  by  lecturing,  haranguing,  and  all  that 
kind  of  agency,  but  by  the  inculcation  of 
the  opposite  truth  to  extirpate  the  error. 
After  all  that  is  said,  the  best  way  of 
reclaiming  the  world  from  its  fallow  or 
brier- covered  condition,  until  it  shall 
bloom  as  the  garden  of  God,  is  for  each 
one  to  commence  in  the  soil  just  below 
his  feet,  and  plant  it  thick  with  gospel 
truths,  and  then  steadily  work  from  that 
point  forward  until  he  shall  faint  in  the 


TEACHING.  83 

furrows  and  fall  on  the  field.  Each  truth 
is  a  vital  germ  which  must  live,  must 
spring  up,  must  propagate  itself,  when 
once  planted. 

The  Gospel  of  Jesus  is  to  elevate  the 
world.  That  Gospel  is  the  storehouse  of 
all  saving  truths.  Endeavor  therefore 
to  do  your  part  in  making  the  particu- 
lar church  to  which  you  belong  a  Gospel 
church.  You  must  be  a  thorough  Bible 
Christian,  and  by  your  example  and  the 
thousand  nameless  influences  which  you 
can  bring  to  bear,  endeavor  to  draw  each 
professor  of  our  religion  up  to  the  stand- 
ard of  the  gospel.  If  I  might  venture  to 
say  what  are  the  two  greatest  defects  in 
the  church  generally,  so  far  as  I  know 
it,  I  should  mention  a  want  of  Bible 
knowledge  and  a  want  of  Christian  lib- 
erality. 

Let  me  urge  you  to  endeavor  to  rem- 


84  WHAT  NOW  ? 

edy  these  defects  by  a  hearty,  devout, 
and  careful  study  of  the  Bible,  the  whole 
Bible,  in  letter  and  spirit ;  by  a  special 
cultivation  in  yourself  of  liberality  both 
as  regards  sentiment  and  the  appropria- 
tion of  your  pecuniary  means  to  unself- 
ish uses  ;  and  then  by  a  strenuous  and 
skilful  effort  to  lead  all  about  you  to  be- 
come more  and  more  deeply  interested 
in  gospel  teachings,  and  to  devote  their 
means  to  the  spread  of  the  truth.  As 
your  own  mind  becomes  more  and  more 
imbued  with  the  principles  of  the  gospel, 
you  will  take  more  and  more  pleasure 
in  stirring  a  love  for  those  beauties  and 
truths  in  the  hearts  of  others. 

Christian   Duties. 

You  may  do  much  by  giving  your  aid 
to  your  pastor  in  all  his  labors  in  which 
a   mombor    of   the   flock   ran   assist   tlm 


CHKIST1AN  DUTIES.  85 

shepherd.  A  candid  examination  of  his 
plans,  and  a  cordial  cooperation,  will  en- 
courage his  soul,  will  hold  up  his  hands, 
and  will  induce  others  to  fall  in  with  their 
influence,  and  thus  build  up  your  church. 
You  can  hardly  appreciate  the  pleasure 
with  which  a  pastor  receives  such  tokens 
of  interest  in  the  cause  of  the  divine  Re- 
deemer, to  which  he  has  devoted  his  life 
and  his  energies. 

Among  other  agencies,  there  is  con- 
nected with  every  well-instituted  church 
a  Sabbath-school.  One  of  the  greatest 
difficulties  in  managing  such  a  school,  is 
to  obtain  the  necessary  number  of  the 
right  kind  of  teachers.  A  Sunday-school 
teacher  should  be  intelligent,  well-edu- 
cated, and  self-sacrificing,  as  well  as 
really  pious.  Merely  to  hear  children 
repeat  answers  to  catechism  questions, 
to  read  or  repeat  passages  from  the  Bible 


86  WHAT  NOW  ? 

by  rote,  without  understanding  or  ap- 
preciation, is  not,  I  should  think,  dis- 
charging the  duties  of  such  a  post.  The 
teacher  should  have  habits  of  study,  and 
not  shrink  from  the  labor  of  investiga- 
ting the  Scriptures.  By  entering  heart- 
ily upon  this  work,  you  may  make  your- 
self, by  God's  blessing,  a  model  teacher, 
may  teach  teachers,  and  bring  the  treas- 
ures of  a  cultivated  mind  to  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  standard  of  instruction  im- 
parted. 

In  the  patient  labors  which  you  per- 
form in  this  department,  you  will  be 
encouraged  by  two  considerations  : 

1.  Many  of  the  children  in  these 
schools  obtain  no  other  literary  cultiva- 
tion. If  you  do  full  duty  towards  your 
class,  you  will  have  given  them  much. 
You  will  have  instructed  them  in  the 
idioms  of  their  own  language,  will  have 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  87 

taught  them  how  to  read  the  mother- 
tongue  with  propriety  and  elegance,  will 
have  stored  their  minds  with  much  of  t \\r 
world's  history,  ancient  and  modern,  and 
witli  many  facts  and  principles  of  phys- 
ical science,  natural  history,  and  geogra- 
phy. The  amount  of  learning  which  may 
appropriately  be  imparted  on  the  Lords 
day  is  by  no  means  contemptible. 

2.  Remember  that  the  future  citizens 
of  the  nation,  and  members  of  Christ's 
church,  are  committed  to  your  charge  to 
receive  their  initial  training  in  morals 
and  religion.  Many  of  them  have  no 
opportunity  of  learning  their  duties  to 
God  and  to  their  fellow-men  except  at 
your  hands.  They  are  to  become  mem- 
bers of  society,  are  to  engage  in  the  trade 
and  commerce  of  the  world,  and  at  the 
ballot-box  are  to  throw  their  influence 
for  right  or  wrong  into  the  councils  of  a 


88  WBLAT  NOW  ? 

growing  commonwealth,  now  already  one 
of  the  most  powerful  nations  upon  the 
face  of  the  globe.  By  the  blessing  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  upon  your  labors,  they  will 
be  brought  into  the  church  ;  but  they  will 
be  strong  or  weak,  wise  or  worldly,  as 
you  may  give  them  the  first  spiritual 
bias. 

You  may  do  much  by  visitations  to 
the  poor  and  uncultivated,  by  winning 
their  confidence,  by  reading  to  them  the 
word  of  God  and  the  writings  of  devout 
men.  Lady  Colquhoun,  of  Scotland,  ren- 
dered good  service  to  her  generation  in 
a  class  for  adults,  which  she  taught  after 
church  service  on  the  Sabbath.  It  has 
occurred  to  me  that  many  of  our  young 
ladies  would  find  this  a  profitable  exer- 
cise, if  pursued  with  humility,  energy, 
and  faith  ;  and  there  might  be  circum- 
stances which  would  favor  the  formation 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  89 

of  such  a  class  to  meet  at  suitable  week- 
day hours. 

You  should  make  it  a  point  of  con- 
science to  secure  a  knowledge  of  the  op- 
erations of  every  society  for  the  spread 
of  the  gospel  connected  with  your  own 
church,  and  as  far  as  possible  of  those 
attached  to  other  churches.  It  is  a 
shame  to  any  person  making  pretension 
to  be  at  all  educated,  not  to  keep  herself 
respectably  informed  of  the  plans  and 
movements  of  such  powerful  institutions 
as  the  American  Bible  Society  and  the 
American  Tract  Society.  When  this 
knowledge  is  gained,  it  should  be  dis- 
seminated. You  should  talk  these  things 
over  at  home  and  in  company,  skilfully 
introducing  such  topics  so  as  politely  to 
throw  aside  the  usual  small-talk  con- 
cerning dress,  parties,  and  other  frivoli- 
ties. You  will  thus  engage  your  heart 
12 


90  WHAT  NOW? 

and  the  hearts  of  others  strongly  on  the 
side  of  the  active  benevolent  operations 
of  the  church.  Your  pastor  will  cheer- 
fully assist  you  in  gathering  and  scat- 
tering such  useful  information. 

There  is  one  reform  which,  in  this  day, 
is  engaging  the  intellects  and  hearts  of 
the  greatest  and  noblest  spirits  of  our 
nation,  and  to  which  every  educated 
young  lady  should  give  her  distinct,  ear- 
nest, and  intelligent  cooperation.  I  al- 
lude to  the  Temperance  Reform.  The 
vice  of  intemperance  has  gone  so  deeply 
down  into  the  social  system,  that  it  will 
require  the  most  strenuous  exertion  of 
us  all  to  pluck  it  out.  But  none  have 
suffered  so  much  from  intemperance  as 
women,  and  none  should  labor  with 
tongue  ami  pen  and  influence  more  ear- 
nestly than  women.  You  should  fill 
your  mind  with  such  an  abhorrence  of 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  91 

intemperance  as  to  be  unable  to  endure 
it,  in  any  form  of  pleasure  or  habit  or 
gain  which  it  may  assume.  By  the  love 
you  bear  immortal  souls,  and  by  the  re- 
spect you  cherish  for  your  sex ;  by  your 
fear  of  that  retributive  justice  which  may 
bring  the  poisoned  chalice  back  to  your 
own  lips,  and  by  the  awards  of  God's 
dread  bar,  I  charge  and  beseech  you 
never,  under  any  circumstances,  to  offer 
"strong  drink"  to  man  or  woman  or 
child,  unless  on  good  grounds  for  san- 
itary reasons.  Men  have  been  made 
drunkards  by  the  witching  grace  with 
which  young  and  beautiful  women  have 
presented  them  the  wine-cup;  and  have 
gone  forward,  with  a  drunkard's  mad- 
ness, to  beggar  their  children  and  break 
the  hearts  of  their  wives.  I  would  as 
soon  a  glittering  snake  should  cross  my 
foot  as  that  I  should  meet  a  lady  in  a 


92  WHAT  NOW? 

social  party  urging  on  a  man  who  ad- 
mires her  the  goblet  which  contains  her 
shame  and  his  perdition. 

I  hope  better  things  of  you.  You  will 
be  expected  to  set  your  face  against  in- 
temperance in  every  way.  Shun  the 
young  man  who  drinks,  and  let  him 
know  why  you  shun  him.  Listen  to  no 
words  of  wooing  from  the  man  who  is 
not  decidedly  and  notoriously  opposed  to 
the  use  and  traffic  of  liquor.  Let  no  man 
persuade  you  to  link  your  destinies  with 
his  because  he  has  just  now  reformed. 
He  may  have  reformed  ;  but,  alas,  the 
history  of  habit — of  this  particular  habit 
especially — shows  how  uncertain  is  such 
reformation.  I  have  known  men  take 
vows  of  abstinence  simply  that  they 
might  blind  the  confidence  of  young 
hearts  ;  and  others  have  perhaps  sin- 
cerely thought  thus  to  have  made  them- 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  03 

selves  really  worthy  the  love  and  alli- 
ance they  sought ;  but  in  both  cases  the 
old  habit  has  been  too  strong  for  the 
young  vows,  and  they  have  made  ship- 
wreck, with  a  precious  cargo  of  hope  and 
love  aboard.  Wine  so  poisons  brain  and 
heart,  that  no  man  who  drinks — I  do  not 
mean  the  street-drunkard,  but  the  man 
who  indulges  this  vice  in  any  measure — 
is  worthy  such  love  as  yours. 

But  the  root  of  this  great  Upas-tree  is 
in  the  traffic.  Let  not  your  smiles,  your 
compliments,  or  any  favor  or  counte- 
nance be  shown  to  the  man  who  makes 
or  sells  this  social  poison;  but  counte- 
nance, and  to  the  extent  of  your  influ- 
ence sustain,  the  men  who  are  laboring, 
in  any  ways  that  are  sanctioned  by  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  to  extirpate  this  dire- 
ful evil.  Occasionally  such  a  monstrous 
sight  may  be  seen  as  a  woman  opposed 


94  WHAT  NOW? 

to  associations  for  suppressing  intemper- 
ance. Such  women  are  either  ill-in- 
formed, weak,  or  wicked.  Do  what  you 
can  to  reform  them.  Let  your  whole 
sex  unite  its  energies  in  this  cause,  and 
the  time  will  come  when  no  more  wives 
will  perish  under  a  drunken  husband's 
blows,  and  no  orphans  live  to  mourn  over 
a  drunken  father's  disgraced  grave. 

But  your  heart,  my  dear  young  friend, 
should  be  la rire  enough  to  contain  this 
world.  While  it  is  natural  that  your 
<>wn  immediate  circle  should  most  deeply 
interest  you.  it  is  Christian  that  you  have 
charity  for  the  whole  world.  As  much 
for  him  who  hunts  in  African  forests  as 
for  him  who  trades  in  American  cities, 
for  her  who  flings  her  baby  to  the  waters 
of  the  Ganges  as  for  her  who  cradles 
her  offspring'in  English  halls,  did  Jesus 
Christ  the  Saviour  die.     It  is  part  of  our 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  95 

Christian  education  to  cherish  the  mis- 
sionary zeal.  It  saves  us  from  the  belit- 
tling influence  of  selfishness  and  section- 
alism. God  has  ordained  that  man  shall 
be  saved  by  man's  instrumentality.  The 
church  is  bound  to  send  the  gospel  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  We  have  too  long 
slumbered  over  this  imperative  duty.  It 
is  time  to  arouse  ourselves.  Let  no  year 
of  your  life  pass  without  your  largest 
possible  contribution  of  time,  thought, 
prayer,  influence,  and  money  to  this 
cause  which  lies  so  near  the  Redeemer's 
heart.  One  reason  why  Christiana  dis- 
charge their  duties  at  home  so  poorly  is, 
that  they  have  not  an  enlarged  sympa- 
thy with  the  race.  Our  people  know  too 
little  of  the  spiritual  destitution  of  other 
lands,  and  therefore  do  not  value  and 
support  as  they  should  the  Christian  in- 
stitutions in   their   own  vicinity.     You 


96  WHAT  NOW? 

are  bound  to  make  yourself  acquainted 
with  the  wants  of  the  world,  and,  as 
much  as  in  you  lies,  to  supply  those 
wants.  What  is  a  Christian?  What 
was  Christ?  Are  we  to  bear  his  name, 
and  have  so  little  of  his  holy,  sympa- 
thetic, self-sacrificing  nature  ?  Make  it 
your  duty  and  your  pleasure  to  arouse 
all  around  you  to  a  keen  feeling  of  their 
duty  in  this  particular.  Labor  modest- 
ly, patiently,  and  perseveringly,  to  make 
the  particular  church  to  which  you  be- 
long a  powerful  auxiliary  to  the  church 
catholic,  in  advancing  the  spiritual  re- 
generation of  the  world. 

And  now,  my  dear  young  friend,  I 
hare  endeavored,  in  a  brief,  simple,  and 
affectionate  manner,  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion at  your  heart,  What  now?  I  have 
merely  pointed  out  some  courses  of  duty 
which,  as  an  educated    Christian   lady, 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  97 

you  will  be  bound  to  pursue.  I  have 
not  said  every  thing  which  might  be 
said.  Your  Christian  intelligence  will 
suggest  many  other  things.  If  you  have 
right  principles  they  will  come  forth  into 
leaves  of  gracious  language  and  fruits  of 
useful  acts,  and  you  will  be  like  a  tree 
planted  by  rivers  of  waters. 

You  go  forth  with  what  a  load  of  re- 
sponsibility! Remember  the  saying  of 
your  Saviour,  "  to  whom  much  is  given  of 
him  will  much  be  required."  You  are 
not  to  be  lost  in  the  mass  of  uneducated 
women,  nor  in  the  contemptible  rabble 
of  women  of  fashion.  It  will  be  a  sad 
thing  for  you  to  commence  life  aimless, 
and  float  down  to  the  ocean  of  eternity 
without  strength  to  steer  yourself  and 
aid  a  fellow-swimmer.  You  go  forth  to 
do  something.  You  go  to  write  a  record 
which  shall  not  shame  you  in  eternity. 


98  WHAT  NOW  I 

You  go  to  leave  your  mark  on  the  world, 
to  open  fountains  whose  waters  shall  flow 
in  widening  streams  when  you  are  housed 
with  the  shrouded.  You  are  to  be  a 
lump  of  leaven  in  your  family,  in  your 
church,  in  the  world,  and  you  must  labor 
to  leaven  the  whole.  Be  not  discour- 
aged with  the  magnitude  of  your  task. 
The  Master  asks  no  more  than  you  can 
perform.  Do  all  you  can,  and  leave 
nothing  undone  which  may  be  accom- 
plished. The  day  whose  night  finds  you 
with  no  increase  of  intellectual  strength, 
no  increase  of  learning,  no  earnest  strug- 
gle with  the  evil  of  your  heart  and  of  the 
world,  no  good  deed  rightly  done  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  will  be  a 
lost  clay — lost  to  you,  but  gone  wander- 
ing into  eternity  to  meet  you  in  the 
hour  when  judgment  shall  be  had  on  all 
your  deeds  and  all  your  days. 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  99 

Life  is  for  labor,  death  for  rest,  and 
eternity  for  reward.  Faint  not.  There 
is  an  eye  above  you  seeing  every  hope, 
every  thought,  every  effort.  It  is  the 
eye  of  the  tender  and  unwearying  Labor- 
er for  the  world's  redemption.  He  is 
not  unmindful  to  forget  your  labor  of 
love.  Man's  praise  or  blame  is  but  the 
modification  of  a  worm's  breath — it  can 
do  you  little  permanent  barm  or  good. 
But  the  approbation  of  Jesus  is  the  life's 
end  of  angels  and  good  men.  Men  honor 
success,  Jesus  honors  intention.  If  you 
attempt  great  good  things  your  reward 
in  eternity  will  not  be  varied  by  any 
calculation  of  success  or  failure.  There- 
fore toil  on. 

You  will  be  called  to  suffer.  This  is 
woman's  lot ;  the  effects  of  woman's 
sin.  But  suffering  may  be  beautiful: 
this  is  the  effect  of  the  grace  purchased 


100  WHAT  NOW? 

by  Christ's  blood.  You  may  bless  youi 
race  as  much  from  the  room  of  sickness 
as  from  the  teacher's  seat.  A  lesson  of 
patience  under  the  rod  may  impress  a 
powerful  soul  with  the  truth  and  glory 
of  Christianity,  and  send  its  influence  to 
the  heights  and  depths  of  human  society. 
He  that  suffers  patiently  as  much  brings 
glory  to  the  Saviour's  name  as  he  who 
labors  energetically.  One  who  has  dis- 
charged every  duty  in  health  may,  in 
God's  name,  embrace  the  couch  of  sickness 
as  freely  as  successful  ambition  embraces 
the  throne  of  power.  But  what  has  an 
aimless,  listless,  or  fashionable  woman  of 
pleasure  to  cheer  and  strengthen  her 
when  sickness  and  death  shall  come? 
Nothing  done,  nothing  attempted:  life 
past  a  dreary  desert,  life  to  come  a 
gloomy  pit.  Be  not  so,  precious  friend, 
but  daily,  plant  the   trees  which    shall 


CHRISTIAN  DUTIES.  101 

bring  forth  flowers  to  strew  your  sick- 
bed and  garland  your  grave. 

"  So  live  that  when  the  mighty  caravan, 
Which  halts  one  night  time  in  the  vale  of  death, 
Shall  strike  its  white  tents  for  the  morning  march, 
Thou  shalt  mount  onward  to  the  eternal  hills, 
Thy  foot  unwearied,  and  thy  strength  renewed, 
Like  the  strong  eagle's,  for  the  upward  flight." 


APPENDIX. 


I  have  mentioned  Mary  Lyon,  as  one 
of  the  greatest  of  her  sex.  Let  me  ear- 
nestly request  you  to  give  a  careful 
reading  to  every  page  of  "The  Power  of 
Christian  Benevolence  Illustrated  in  the 
Life  and  Labors  of  Mary  Lyon,  compiled 
by  Edward  Hitchcock,  D.  D.,  LL.  D  "* 
Keep  it  in  your  library.  It  will  proba- 
bly do  you  more  good  than  any  other 
merely  human  composition  in  the  depart- 
ment of  biography.  If  you  can,  visit 
her  school  at  South  Hadley,  Mass. 

A  much  inferior  woman  was  Lady  Col- 
quhoun,  of  Scotland.    Her  memoir,  writ- 

*  Published  by  the  American  Tract  Society. 


104  APPENDIX. 

ten  by  James  Hamilton,  D.  D.,  of  Lon- 
don, is  published  in  New  York.  She 
might  be  much  inferior  to  Mary  Lyon 
and  yet  be,  as  she  was,  a  shining  light  in 
her  circle.  I  make  an  extract  from  her 
Journal : 

u  I  have  begun  a  new  plan  at  our 
school  on  Sundays — a  class  for  grown-up 
girls.  They  commit  nothing  to  mem- 
ory. But  I  explain  the  Bible  and  cate- 
chism  The  class  is  flourish- 
ing and  always  increasing.  Several  old 
people  attend  regularly,  and  I  hope  to 

have  more I  have  a  pretty  large 

congregation  and  it  needs  some  nerve. 
But  I  hope  to  be  able  to  go  on,  and  I 
hear  it  is  much  liked.  May  God  send  a 
blessing!" 

I1<t  biographer  adds: 

"These  J  force  Sabbaticce  were  not  only 
very  popular,  but  became  extremely  use- 


LADY  COLQUHOUN.  105 

ful.  During  the  week  her  ladyship  stud- 
ied with  much  care  the  passage  which 
she  intended  to  explain,  and  exerted 
herself  to  find  anecdotes  and  illustrations 
which  might  render  it  more  interesting 
and  memorable.*  Her  manner  was  full 
of  calm  benevolence  and  mild  persua- 
sion ;  and  whatever  nervousness  she 
might  feel,  her  address  was  so  fluent, 
natural,  and  dignified,  that  the  thoughts 
of  the  audience  were  solely  directed  to 
the  subject.  In  unison  with  that  devout 
and  holy  life  which  they  all  knew  that 
their  instructress  led,  those  exhortations 
were  singularly  impressive.  On  a  dying 
bed  more  than  one  of  her  young  hearers 
gave  evidences  of  having  been  by  this 
means  brought  to  the  Saviour ;  and  from 

o  An  excellent  aid  in  such  exercises  may  be  found 
in  Arvine's  Cyclopedia  of  moral  and  religious  anec- 
dotes. 

U 


100  APPENDIX. 

the  grateful  tenderness  in  which  many  of 
the  survivors  hold  their  teacher's  mem- 
ory it  may  be  hoped  that  all  her  works 
have  not  yet  followed  her." 

If  space  allowed  I  should  be  pleased  to 
give  other  extracts  from  her  ladyship's 
journal,  and  her  biographer's  remarks 
upon  the  right  and  wrong  manner  in 
conducting  such  classes.  But  you  may 
read  the  book. 

I  commend  to  your  careful  perusal  a 
little  work  published  by  the  American 
Tract  Society,  entitled  "Systematic  Be- 
neficence" You  will  do  much  good  by 
circulating  that  little  book.  A  number 
of  copies  may  be  purchased  for  a  small 
sum. 

While  writing  one  of  the  concluding 
paragraphs  of  this  little  volume  I  was 
reminded,  of  an  article  I  had  contributed, 
in  December  of  1850,  to  the  "Southern 


JAMES  B.  TAYLOR.  107 

Lady's  Companion,"  published  at  Nash- 
ville, Tenn.  Some  of  the  sentiments  ot 
that  sketch  are  repeated  in  this  book. 
It  contains,  however,  an  exemplification 
of  some  of  the  truths  herein  set  forth, 
and  is  preserved  in  this  appendix  in  the 
hope  that  it  may  be  made  more  exten- 
sively useful.  Its  title  is  "  James  Brain- 
erd  Taylor's  Miss  W- — ." 

If  any  of  the  readers  of  this  magazine 
have  never  read  the  memoirs  of  James 
Brainerd  Taylor,  I  am  happy  to  have  it 
in  my  power  to  name  to  them  a  volume, 
the  perusal  of  which  must  be  profitable 
to  every  reader,  especially  to  the  young. 
Taylor  was  a  self-denying,  devoted  Chris- 
tian, whose  labors  for  the  cause  of  Jesus 
were  abundantly  blessed  in  turning  many 
from  darkness  to  light.  And  yet  he  held 
no  elevated  position  in  society,  in  the 
church   or  in   the   stnto.      He  was   not 


108  APPENDIX. 

even  pastor  of  a  church.  A  mere  stu- 
dent in  theology,  not  gifted  with  supe- 
rior talents,  by  the  force  of  a  holy  life 
and  a  pure  conversation,  by  a  wise  con- 
secration of  his  time  and  his  abilities  to 
the  great  work,  he  succeeded  in  winning 
souls  to  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Being 
dead,  he  yet  speaketh — his  memoir  hav- 
ing  boon  blessed  to  the  edification  of  a 
large  circle  of  readers. 

There  are  many  young  persons  in  the 
church  who  often  feel  a  desire  to  be  086- 
ful.  When  they  reflect  upon  the  great 
work  which  is  yet  to  be  done  ;  when  they 
think  of  the  halo  which  crowns  and  glo- 
rifies the  names  of  the  blessed  dead  who 
have  served  their  generation;  or  when 
they  read  of  some  tremendous  blow 
which  has  been  dealt  by  a  powerful  arm 
to  the  idol  which  the  world  worships,  or 
hear  of  Bome   encounter  on   the   great 


THE  FIELD  AT  HAND.  109 

moral  battle-field,  in  which  the  spiritual 
prowess  of  some  lofty  soul  has  turned 
the  tide  of  war  against  the  banners  of 
Error — they  long  to  do  something  which 
shall  leave  its  mark  on  earth  and  carry 
i  t  -  trophies  to  heaven.  If  all  these  long- 
ings resulted  according  to  their  dreams^ 
how  many  a  glorious  institution  would 
rise  amid  the  world's  crying  wants !  how 
many  an  idol-temple  would  be  supplant- 
ed by  a  sanctuary  of  the  most  holy  faith ! 
how  many  a  dark  place  of  the  earth, 
wherein  dwelleth  cruelty,  would  be  pen- 
etrated by  the  cheerful  and  healthful 
light  of  the  sun  of  righteousness!  Why, 
writh  so  many  desires  to  do  good,  are 
they  so  comparatively  useless?  Is  the 
defect  in  their  heads  ?  No !  it  is  in  their 
hearts. 

Allow  me,  young  Christian  reader,  to 
show  this  in  von.  if  I  can.     You  wish 


110  APPENDIX. 

to  be  useful.  The  spirit  of  our  blessed 
religion  is  the  spirit  of  doing  good.  It 
is  also  an  enlarging  spirit.  M  The  field  is 
the  world11  is  a  grand  saying,  never  to  be 
forgotten.  But  your  difficulty  is,  that 
you  wish  to  sow  the  whole  field  over 
with  one  single  grand  broad-cast,  which 
shall  fling  into  every  furrow  at  once  seed 
that  shall  instantly  spring  to  a  harvest, 
to  gladden  earth,  and  if  possible,  aston- 
ish heaven.  You  are  not  willing  to  take 
the  little  plot  just  before  your  door,  and 
clear  it  up  by  the  patient  picking  out  of 
rocks  and  grubbing  up  of  roots ;  that 
work  is  all  too  little  for  you,  and  too  un- 
romantic.  You  will  not  have  the  stimu- 
lus of  a  thousand  seeing  eyes  and  a  thou- 
sand encouraging  smiles.  Does  not  this 
show  that  there  is  something  wrong  at 
the  heart?  You  would  be  a  missionary 
to  China.     You  would  like  to  ho  n  Mrs. 


THE  FIELD  AT   HAND.  Ill 

Judson,  to  have  memoirs  written  of  you, 
when  dead,  and  thousands  of  copies  of 
volumes  of  memorials  and  offerings  pub- 
lished, with  your  name  on  the  title  in- 
stead of  hers.  That  would  be  very  fine. 
But  you  forget  the  fact,  that  you  do  not 
labor  faithfully,  devotedly,  without  pride 
or  vanity,  in  the  nearest  Sabbath-school, 
among  the  poor  neglected  adults  or  chil- 
dren living  on  the  same  square  in  the 
same  city  with  you,  perhaps,  or  certain- 
ly within  a  mile  or  two  of  your  father's 
residence — that  you  are  not  striving  to 
make  that  father's  family  a  model  of  a 
perfect  Christian  household,  not  training 
your  brothers  and  sisters  to  the  ways  of 
the  Cross,  not  striving  to  bring  the  ser- 
vants of  the  household  to  the  blessed 
Saviour  of  us  all — that  this  failure  on 
your  part  is  positive  proof  that  you  are 
not  ready  to  go  from  home  to  work  for 


112  APPENDIX. 

Jesus.  Remember,  that  those  who  go — 
if  there  be  such  deceived  souls — to  for- 
eign lands  for  the  mere  name  and  gran- 
deur of  t In-  thing,  have  their  reward  on 
earth,  and  have  nothing  to  look  for  in 
the  skies.  Remember,  also,  that  a  soul 
Saved  in  your  own  village,  or  at  your 
own  fireside,  through  your  instrumental- 
ity, will  shine  as  brightly  in  the  crown 
which  Jesus  will  give  you,  and  will  bring 
as  much  glory  to  his  blessed  name,  as 
though  you  found  that  soul  in  polar 
snows  or  oriental  jungles. 

But  you  would  be  useful  in  your  own 
country,  if  jrou  could  only  be  sure  that 
you  possess  such  talents  as  Buch-and- 
such-a-one  ;  if  you  could  only  be  a  dis- 
tinguished preacher,  or  could  found  or 
support  an  asylum  or  a  school,  or  some 
such  benevolent  institution.  You  have 
not   yet   discovered    perhaps — and    the 


THE   FIELD  AT  HAND.  113 

discovery  may  be  painful  to  you  when 
made — that  some  of  the  most  talented, 
and,  I  will  add,  distinguished  ministers 
of  the  church,  are  doing  less  for  the  cause 
of  the  Saviour  than  many  an  inferior 
and  comparatively  unknown  brother. 
You  forget  that  they  are  exposed  to  a 
thousand  temptations  which  never  reach 
the  humbler  and  more  hidden  child  of 
God.  You  do  not  recollect,  that  the 
greatest  injuries  inflicted  upon  the  church 
of  Jesus,  come  from  her  most  gifted  sons. 
You  are  not  to  be  judged  by  the  measure 
which  will  be  applied  to  them ;  the  rule 
for  each  to  adopt,  in  striving  to  do  good, 
is,  Now — here — all  I  can — always. 

The  disposition  of  the  church  in  this  day 
would  seem  to  be  to  undervalue,  or  at  least 
to  overlook  the  value  of  the  plan  of  bring- 
ing men,  soul  by  soul,  to  Jesus.  We  must 
do  something  splendid,  or  nothing  at  all. 

What  Now  t  15 


114  APPENDIX. 

The  eclat  of  crowds,  eloquence,  magnifi- 
cent machinery,  is  what  attracts  us. 
But  suppose  each  member  of  the  church 
caught  the  soul-winning  spirit,  and  de- 
pended more  upon  God's  blessing  on  the 
outshining  of  a  holy  heart  in  a  holy  life, 
and  each  so  lived  as  in  the  course  of 
every  year  to  bring  at  least  one  more 
into  the  army  of  laborers — how  soon 
would  the  world  be  converted,  thorough- 
ly converted!  Read  the  memoirs  of 
such  humble  men  as  Harlan  Page  and 
James  Brainard  Taylor,  and  then  calcu- 
late upon  the  supposition  that  all  chureli 
members  did  as  much  as  they  —  and 
theirs  was  not  a  more  favorable  position 
than  that  of  most  Christians — and  that 
the  number  of  converts  wejit  on,  as  it 
should,  in  geometric  ratio,  and  see  how 
soon  the  world  would  be  reclaimed  to 
God  and  his  Christ ! 


MISS  W .  115 

Some  of  those  situations  in  life  which 
appear,  at  first  sight,  least  favorable  to 
extensive  usefulness,  may  be  so  improv- 
ed by  a  holy  disciple  as  to  become  a 
fountain  of  many  streams.  In  the  me- 
moir of  James  B.  Taylor,  there  is  fre- 
quent mention  made  of  a  Miss  W . 

The  name  of  that  lady  was  Pamela  Wig- 
ton.  While  spending  the  winter  of  1839 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Janes  (now  Bishop  Janes)  invited  the 
writer  of  this  sketch  to  take  an  appoint- 
ment to  preach  every  third  Thursday 
night,  in  a  private  house,  in  conjunction 
with  himself  and  Dr.  Bangs.  The  invi- 
tation was  accepted.  I  found  the  place 
in  the  third  story  of  a  house  in  a  small 
street  in  the  lower  end  of  the  city.  A 
long  dark  narrow  passage,  where  two 
persons  could  scarcely  walk  abreast  led 
to  a. winding   flight  of  stairs.     At  the 


116  APPENDIX. 

head  of  this  I  found  a  room  of  moder- 
ate dimensions,  very  plainly,  but  very 
comfortably,  and  even  neatly  furnished. 
Propped  with  cushions  in  a  rocking-chair, 
sat  a  lady  of  about  fifty-five  years  of  age, 
very  interesting  in  her  whole  appearance, 
but  very  emaciated,  and  almost  unable 
to  assist  herself  in  any  respect.  The 
oftener  I  visited  her,  the  more  and  more 
lovely  did  she  appear.  For  more  than 
twenty  years,  I  think  she  told  me,  she 
had  been  confined  to  her  room,  and  a 
large  portion  of  the  time  to  her  bed. 
Once  she  had  been  able  to  be  carried 
carefully  to  a  steamboat,  and  to  go  a 
short  distance  up  the  Hudson  river. 
She  suffered  frequent  and  acute,  and 
sometimes  protracted,  pain.  I  have  sat 
for  hours  at  her  feet,  listening  to  her 
conversation,  which  was  rich  in  memo- 
rials  of  many   prominent   persons   and 


MISS  W .  117 

events,  but  still  richer  in  a  varied  and 
profound  Christian  experience.  Some- 
times, for  whole  minutes,  paroxysms  of 
pain  would  seize  her,  and  I  could  tell 
when  they  were  coming  by  the  increas- 
ing pressure  of  her  hand ;  and  then  she 
would  be  silent  for  a  short  time,  and  the 
twitching  of  her  features  betrayed  the 
agony  which  the  firm  and  devout  ex- 
pression of  her  eyes  showed  she  was 
endeavoring  to  endure  in  the  strength 
which  God  supplies.  Then  her  hand 
would  relax,  and  her  features  fall  into 
their  usual  play,  and,  with  an  ejacula- 
tion of  thanksgiving,  a  tear  or  two,  ex- 
pressed by  pain,  standing  in  her  mild 
eyes,  while  mine  were  moist  with  sym- 
pathy, she  would  ask  to  be  reminded  of 
the  subject  of  our  conversation,  and  re- 
sume her  remarks  with  a  cheerfulness 
which    T    could    scarcely    comprehend. 


118  APPENDIX. 

Every  attention,  no  matter  how  small, 
she  would  receive  with,  if  nothing  more, 
an  appreciating  look,  which  made  it  a 
pleasure  to  smooth  her  pillow,  or  adjust 
her  cushion,  or  hold  a  cup  of  water  to 
her  lips.  So  beautiful  was  grace  in  her, 
that  it  soon  became  a  delight  to  be  in 
htr  presence.  Many  a  time  have  I 
walked  whole  blocks  in  a  dark  and  rainy 
night,  and  often  when  in  pain  myself,  to 
be  soothed  and  strengthened  by  an  exam- 
ple which  preached  endurance  with  a 
wonderful  power,  and  a  voice  made 
musical  by  love.  Though  dim  of  vision, 
she  seemed  instinctively  to  know  the 
state  of  my  feelings  from  the  tones  of 
my  voice ;  and  when  sick  and  jaded,  I 
came  to  her  from  some  public  service, 
or  from  my  desk,  she  would  part  my 
hair  with  her  trembling  hands,  and  kiss 
mv  forehead   with   a  mothorlv   nffeetion 


MISS  W .  119 

that  made  me  feel  like  a  child,  and  then 
talk  to  me  of  Christian  heroism,  and 
of  the  noble  souls  who  have  toiled  in 
pain  for  the  fadeless  crown,  till  I  felt 
the  spirit  of  a  man  revived  in  me.  No 
one  knows  how  many  an  hour  I  have 
spent  in  that  obscure  place,  nor  the 
blessed  influence  which  that  holy  invalid 
exerted  over  my  youthful  ministry. 

It  was  a  preaching  place,  as  I  have 
said.  Those  who  have  heard  Bishop 
Janes  often,  know  the  peculiar  charac- 
ter of  his  preaching  ;  how  full  it  is  of 
Christ  and  of  Christian  consolation.  Per- 
haps some  of  the  very  finest  of  those 
thoughts  and  expressions  which  have 
won  the  almost  loving  attention  of  the 
thousands  who  have  waited  in  crowds 
upon  his  ministry,  were  uttered  in  that 
little  room  to  half  a  dozen  persons, 
Methodists,  Baptists,  and  Presbyterians : 


1*20  APPENDIX. 

for  all  classes  and  all  denominations,  who 
knew  Miss  Wigton,  delighted  in  visiting 
her.  By  much  the  best  sermon  I  ever 
heard  Dr.  Bangs  deliver,  was  preached  at 

liiflS  W 's  from  1  Peter  2:7— "To 

you,  therefore  which  believe  he  is  pre- 
cious." The  light  that  played  on  the  in- 
valid's face  was  a  beautiful  and  forceful 
commentary  upon  the  text,  and  a  striking 
corroboration  of  the  sermon.  "  In  the 
long  period  of  her  illness,  she  had  en- 
joyed the  services  of  many  of  the  Lord's 
servants,  and  her  recollection  of  their 
discourses  and  conversations  furnished 
her  with  abundant  materials  for  the  en- 
tertainment and  edification  of  her  visi- 
tors. 

Who  would  not  Bay,  at  first  sight, 
that  her  scope  of  labor  and  of  useful- 
ness was  very  limited?  She  was  sick, 
weak,  in    pain,    confined  to  her    room, 


MISS  W .  121 

subsisting  upon  the  benefactions  of  oth- 
ers ;  withal,  she  had  no  superior  intel- 
lectual gifts,  and  had  had  very  little 
advantage  of  education.  And  yet,  her 
influence  was  felt  in  the  far  West  oi 
of  America,  and  in  Europe.  By  the  as- 
sistance of  her  friends,  she  maintained  a 
correspondence  with  Christians  at  great 
distances,  who  had  been  profited  by  her 
example  and  conversation.  I  acted  as 
her  amanuensis  in  writing  to  a  clergyman 
in  the  West  who  had  entered  the  minis- 
try as  a  man  would  enter  upon  the  prac- 
tice of  the  law.  After  a  few  years  of 
almost  utter  uselessness,  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  Miss  W .     She  soon 

found  that  he  4'had  not  the  root  of  the 
matter  in  him,"  that  he  was  destitute  of  a 
proper  knowledge  of  the  plan  of  salvation, 
and  had  no  interest  in  the  atonement.  She 
commenced  to  make  his  deficiencies  man- 

16 


122  APPENDIX. 

ifest  to  himself.  He  became  convinced 
that  he  was  a  sinner.  His  agony  for 
some  time  was  very  great;  but  with  a 
holy  wisdom  she  led  the  stricken  sinner 
to  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  there  at  her 
feet  he  was  converted,  and  returned  to 
his  people  a  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus, 
ready  to  do  a  great  work.  When  John 
Summerfield  commenced  his  ministry  in 
America,  he  received  much  spiritual 
Busing  from  this  mother  iii  Israel.  She 
loved  him  dearly.  It  was  delightful  to 
hen  her  talk  of  that  young  disciple. 
When  James  Brainerd  Taylor  first  went 
to  New  York,  as  a  subordinate  clerk,  I 
think,  in  some  establishment,  he  was 
very    thoughtless   and    wayward.       His 

brother  took  him  to  see  Miss  W . 

She  became  interested  in  him  at  once. 
and  succeeded  in  winning  him  to  her. 
There  was  nothing  querulous,   peevish, 


MISS  W .  123 

disagreeable,  or  repulsive  in  Miss  W . 

The  young  could  love  her.  She  soon 
gained  a  mastery  over  the  mind  of  young 
Taylor.  "By  degrees  she  interested  him 
in  religious  subjects,  and  then  in  the 
subject  of  his  personal  salvation,  until 
"the  day  dawned  and  the  shadows  fled 
away/7  and  he  was  a  free  man  in  Christ 
Jesus.  The  Lord  led  him  to  the  work  of 
the  ministry,  and  during  his  preparatory 
studies,  he  was  instrumental  in  turning 
many  from  darkness  to  light.  The  Lord 
took  him  from  the  evil  to  come,  but  not 
before  he  had  opened  springs  which  shall 
flow  down  through  the  history  of  the 
church.     The  letters  which  he  wrote  to 

Miss  W ,  she  preserved  as  a  sacred 

memorial  of  his  excellence  and  holiness. 
Some  of  them  appear  in  his  memoirs,  and 
I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  having  for  a 
short  time  in  my  possession  the   little 


124  APPENDIX. 

green  bag  in  which  they  were  so  care- 
fully deposited. 

She  has  followed  Taylor  to  Ihe  resting- 
place  of  saints.  Her  sufferings  have  end- 
ed, and  the  purified  gold  has  gone  up  to 
adorn  the  temple  on  high;  but  with 
what  warmth  does  the  memory  of  her 
virtues  lie  i:i  tluk  hearts  of  many  who 
have  enjoyed  hersociety  on  earth.  What 
an  example  of  endurance,  in  these  latter 
times!  No  mission  to  China,  or  to  the 
islands  of  the  B6a,  could  be  sublimer  than 
hers.    She  wu  a  living  witness  to  the 

triumphs  of  faith  over  poverty,  suffering; 

and  confinement;      She  was  poor,  but 

made  many  rich:  she  was  unknown,  and 

well  known;  she  had  nothing,  and 

yet  possessed  all  things;  she  was  dying 

yet  behold  she  lived.  How  many  young 
ladies  in  our  churches  would  look  upon 
imprisonment  for  twenty  years  in  a  ehnm- 


MISS  W .  125 

ber  of  sickness  as  being  a  prolonged 
death !  0  ye  daughters  of  ease,  learn 
to  look  upon  your  lives  in  the  blaze  of 
fortune  and  fashion  as  despicable,  when 
compared  with  hers.  Ye  that  are  sick 
and  poor,  and  wish  to  do  something  for 
your  Lord,  " learn  "  not  only  "how  sub- 
lime," but  how  Christian  and  how  useful 
"a  thing  it  is  to  suffer  and  be  strong," 
A  holy  life — that  is  usefulness.  Holi- 
ness of  heart,  in  His  members,  is  the 
lever  with  which  his  people  must  lift  the 
world  to  lay  it  at  the  feet  of  Christ.  If 
all  the  young  were  like  Taylor,  and  all 
the   aged   and    suffering   like    his   Miss 

W ,  how  lovely  would  Christianity 

become  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and 
how  powerfully  would  sinners  be  at- 
tracted to  the  cross.  I  have  written  this 
sketch  in  the  hope  that  the  example  to 
which  it  points  may  not  be  lost  upon 


19B  APPENDIX. 

young  women  who  by-and-by  may  be 
;!llicted  and  in  old  age.  There  is  no 
er  in  earth  or  hell  to  stay  the 
irresistible  influence  of  any  human  be- 
ing  whose  soul  is  sanctified  by  the  Spirit, 
and  whose  life  is  devoted  to  the  work  of 
Christ. 


//Q/22J 


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